True Confessions
by Rogue Angel 715
Summary: Written in a diary format, Logan leaves again but can't get Rogue out of his mind. Rogue wants to touch, she longs to feel. And there's one person in particular that she wants to hold close without hurting them. Please R&R!
1. Assignments

**True Confessions**

_Assignments _

December 1

Professor Xavier gave each of us in his advanced literature class an extra credit assignment: keep a journal of your life for the next month. Write at least once every two days, a minimum of one page, both sides, and make sure it's legible. The journals are due at the end of the semester and are worth at least twenty extra credit points. The Professor said that, in addition to raising some of our borderline grades, he believes that these journals will really give him the opportunity to get inside our heads, to see what we really think. Honestly though, if the Prof really wanted to get inside our heads, we all know that there would be no stopping the world's strongest telepath. But, my grade is only two points away from an A, and I figure doing this assignment will give me some cushion points for the final come Christmastime, so here goes nothing…

Where to start? I mean, what does the Professor not know about me? After all the shit that's happened over these past years, I'm amazed that the man hasn't died of heart failure on my account. But I don't want to write pages on past events that everyone knows about already. I've been asked to tell the story of Liberty Island more times than I can count by various members of the student body; after all, to them it's just a fantastical adventure story. I mean, picture it: the misfit girl runs away from home, meets up with a reluctant hero, is kidnapped by the bad guy, and is saved by said reluctant hero after he willingly sacrifices his own life for her. The thing is, no one seems to understand that there are some painful memories scrambled into that saga…actually, the entire thing was one huge nightmare. It felt like some terrible dream that I couldn't wake up from, some horrific, awful dream that turned out to be real. Even two years later, sometimes late at night, when the rest of the mansion is sleeping, I still get chills running up and down my spine and a childish sense of paranoia when I'm lying in my bed.

It's times like that when I miss Logan the most. See, when I first touched Logan, a part of him stayed with me in my mind. It wasn't like he was talking to me in my head or anything, it was just this presence, this faint glimmer of him in the back of my brain. Sometimes at night, I would have the same horrible nightmares that he had, the ones about his experience at Alkali Lake. I would wake up screaming, and Kitty and Jubilee told me later that I was kicking and thrashing in my sleep, trying to slice things apart with invisible claws. They never asked what the dreams were about, never pressed the matter, for which I was grateful. I didn't want anyone to know that I still had a bit of Logan locked away in my mind, though they probably guessed as much. Still, there are some things that even mutants will think is weird, and that is one of them.

Somehow though, Logan knew. I'm not sure how, but he knew what I screamed about late at night, whether it was the Liberty Island nightmare, the memories of my family kicking me out of the house when they learned what I was, or his own terrifying snippets of what when on in the depths of the Alkali Lake base. Maybe a little piece of me was in his mind as well, or maybe he just knew me like no one else. I don't know, and I don't really care to be honest.

It was as if a weight had been lifted off my shoulders when I found him on the porch one summer night, a day or so before he left for Alkali Lake. I had just woken up from another nightmare, one of his this time, and was too scared that it would return if I fell back asleep. So, being as quiet as I could, I slipped out of my dorm and crept downstairs to the veranda, hoping that a breath of fresh air and a look at the myriad of tiny stars would calm my nerves.

When I saw Logan, he was staring out over the lawn, not really looking at anything. He was sitting on one of the benches, leaning against the wall and smoking one of his cigars. He had a look of deep contemplation, and at first I thought he hadn't seen me. I should've known better. "Can't sleep, kid?" he asked me. His voice was quiet in the night, but he wasn't angry with me for walking in on him.

I shook my head. "No," I said softly. Hearing his voice sent my heart into my throat. God, I had such a crush on him when I was a kid. It's kind of comical thinking about it now, the way my stomach used to do an Olympic gymnast's routine when I saw him.

"Me neither," he said as he took another puff of his cigar. He looked at me for the first time and motioned to the seat next to him. I shuffled over in my bare feet, careful to watch out for any of his exposed skin. My old sweater and blue pajama pants covered me well enough, but I suddenly realized that I didn't bring any gloves.

I didn't know what to do. I couldn't very well sit down next to him and risk touching his bare flesh. I stood there stupidly, scuffing my purple painted toes on the rough wood of the floor, trying to think of what to say.

Logan saw my bare hands as well. "You're not gonna hurt me, kid," he said, but I wasn't stupid. The last time he touched me he had nearly died there on top of the Statue of Liberty. He had just gotten out of the med lab a few days ago, and anyone with eyes could see that it still hurt him to move a lot. Wounds take a lot longer to mend when you're stripped of your healing abilities.

I shook my head again. "I don't wanna risk it," I mumbled, suddenly developing a newfound interest in the grain of the wood planks under my bare feet.

Logan sighed. Without a word, he produced a pair of leather gloves and handed them to me. A wave of relief washed over me as I took them and slid them on. They were his motorcycle gloves, black and well worn, and way too big for my hands.

I sat down next to him, and for a while we were just there together in a comfortable silence. His free hand was on his right thigh, and when I looked down, I could just faintly see the raised skin on the back of his hand where the adamantium blades pressed up under his flesh. Suddenly, it was as if I was back in the dream again. I could feel the horrible sensation of those cold blades slicing through the skin between my knuckles in order to get free, the pain it caused each time they were forced out of my body. My stomach heaved involuntarily, and I barely held back the bile that burned into my throat. I could feel the tears cascading down my cheeks. Logan looked at me with compassion and understanding in those brown, usually fierce eyes. He let me sob on the shoulder of his t-shirt, and he gently stroked my hair with his large, calloused hands.

"It's gonna be okay, kid," he whispered to me, his voice low and soothing. "I promise, it's gonna be okay. They're only dreams. They can't hurt you, not while I'm here."

And that's when I realized that he knew. I didn't ask how, I was just so relieved that he knew the torment that I was going through, the overwhelming sense of despair and loneliness that seemed to grip my heart each time I tried to relax. We sat there for an hour at least, maybe more. I never told him about the dreams, he never told me why he couldn't sleep. Something told me that it was for the same reason that I was awake, but I didn't ask. We didn't need to. When we finally went back to our rooms, I fell into my bed, and I realized that I still had his gloves. I slept with them on that night, breathing in scent of cigar smoke, leather, sleepless nights on the road, lonely hours in bars—the indefinable scent of Logan.

God, I miss him so much sometimes. I know he doesn't like to stay, but I wish he'd take me with him to Mexico. Logan relates to me like no one else. Maybe it's because a part of him is still in my head, I don't know, but I just feel safe when I'm with him. I used to feel secure here, but after the attack on the school I've learned that not even the walls of Xavier's Institute for the Gifted are impenetrable. But I know that the Wolverine would never let anything bad happen to me.

If only he'd write, or even call every once in a while, just to say hi. I'd be the happiest girl in the world if he'd just acknowledge the fact that I exist when he's not around. But it'd be the best if he'd come back to the mansion, come back to me, because I sure do miss him.

˜™

Dec 1

Jesus Christ, I feel like such an idiot right now. How in the hell'd Xavier get me to do this? I guess it's the same way a person could get me to jump off a cliff without a second thought—the promise of information about my past. That's what Charles said when he gave me this little book, a small, brown leather thing with a loop to hold a pen. It was right after Jean had…after she had died, a month or so later.

I was getting ready to leave again. I never could stay in once place for long, and after Jean's death, the mansion was so depressing I thought I was gonna kill myself if I stayed much longer. (Don't ask me how I planned on killing myself. I mean, I took a bullet to the head for God's sake and was up in five minutes.) I just needed to get out of there, I needed to be the Wolverine again, to go to the farthest reaches of the earth—or at least Mexico. Yeah, Mexico…it'd be a nice change from the freezing temperatures of the iceberg some people call Canada. I'd get some sun, maybe a couple of beautiful Mexican senoritas, and some Jose Cuervo real cheap, just to try and numb the emptiness.

I was packing my bag when I heard a knock on my door. "Yeah?" I called, not really caring who it was, or more importantly, what they wanted.

The door swung open, and there was Professor X in another one of his immaculate business suits (God, does that man own anything but suits?), a small box in his lap. "Good morning, Logan," he said politely, rolling himself in. "I see you're getting ready to leave again. Where do you plan on going this time?" he asked me.

"Mexico," I said as I stuffed another shirt into my bag. "As great as you people are, I gotta get outta here for awhile. I just need a breather."

"You don't have to explain yourself to me, Logan," he said calmly, a small smile on his face. "You're a grown man, you certainly don't need my permission."

_Damn right,_ I thought, but I wasn't mad at the man. You can't really be angry with Charles; he's always so damn composed and peaceful—an exact opposite of me—that everything seems to bounce off of him like water off a rock. Whereas with me, you say one wrong thing and you're liable to have a claw embedded in your gut.

"I have a small gift for you Logan," he told me as he handed me the box. I took it and looked at him, confused. "We'll call it a going away present."

I shrugged and took the lid off the box. Inside was this little brown leather book, with a small silver pen slipped into the loop. I flipped through it, looking at all the blank pages and wondering what in the hell Charles was getting at.

"I have a theory, if you will, Logan," he explained, noting the question in my eyes. "I know that you still have the nightmares, the memories of Alkali Lake that come to you in your subconscious. I believe that if you were to write down these dreams, these suppressed memories, it is possible that seeing them in printed form may draw on an untapped vein of remembrance."

I listened, then looked from Charles' cool features to the little book. "You want me to keep a diary?" I said, with a bit of indignation creeping into my voice.

"Not a diary, Logan," he responded, "but a record of exactly what you can remember about your past, in hopes that seeing those words will bring other memories to light."

Record, diary, journal…it was all the same, Nancy-boy crap to me. I shrugged and tossed the little book on top of my bag. Seemingly satisfied, Xavier smiled and said, "Have a wonderful time in Mexico, Logan. We'll be waiting for you when you return."

After he left, I continued throwing clothes into my bag, burring the "record" under a mountain of wrinkled shirts and socks. Frankly, I had no intention of writing anything whatsoever in this thing, although that idea is pretty much dead, buried, and gone to hell by now.

_Waiting for me…_ I snorted. You didn't have to be a telepath to know that half of the school was scared shitless of me and the other half probably didn't care one way or the other if I left. After all, I never spoke more than a few words to the majority of the students, and they weren't exactly "Hi, how are you?"

And if you look at the staff, I'm not much better in their book either. Charles cares, but then again, that man cares about everyone, which would just give me an immense headache. Why worry about everyone else? Life is complicated enough just trying to get through it, why add a million other people's problems to your mind? It's better to look out for me and me alone...maybe lonelier, but definitely better in the long run…

And Scott, well good ol' One Eye can't stand me anyway. Never did sit well with him that I had a thing for his wife, although she always stayed true to him. Lucky bastard had himself one of the finest women in the world, too good for me I suppose. As for the rest of the staff, Ororo and the New Blue Duo, Kurt and Dr. Hank McCoy, well they know me and they're civil enough, but I got a feeling that they wouldn't cry too hard if I wasn't coming back to the mansion anytime soon.

There is one person who wouldn't like it too much if I never showed up again, though. Marie, God love her, is probably the only person in this world who gives a damn about me. I can still remember back when I first saw her in that bar back in Canada, looking completely lost and forlorn in that ridiculous green cape. She was covered in so much fabric, all I could see was that innocent face and those big brown eyes taking in me about to gut a man with my claws. I could still hear that soft southern whisper asking me for help, for a ride to nowhere.

Jean told me that after the Liberty Island incident, the kid had gotten it into her pretty brown head that I was her savior, her personal Jesus Christ. Somewhere along the line, that hero worship turned into a teenage crush, and though I would never admit it to anyone, I thought it was cute. After all, it was nice to have someone care about what happens to you, even if that someone is a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl.

When I came back to the school this year, there she was, sweet little Marie, the one girl welcome wagon. Two years had passed, and the kid had changed drastically. I couldn't help but notice that she was taller, fuller, and more woman than girl. Even had herself a boyfriend, that little wuss Bobby. That kid wasn't much in my book, unworthy of Marie, to say the least. But it wasn't like they could do anything, no kissing or touching or anything like that. I didn't have anything to worry about; she was still my innocent Marie.

I remember thinking, _She's gonna kill me when she finds out I'm leaving again._ Of all the people in the world to look up to, she has to have chosen the worst one. But she of all people should know how much I needed to get away. She knows I can't stay in one place for long; I had to get out, I need freedom like most people need water. Wolverines don't do too well inside a cage…

It's been a month since I left Xavier's place, and sure enough, here I am in a cheap, dirty Mexican motel, beer in hand and no relief in sight. Waves of guilt wash over me every time I think about how I left that place, the look of hurt in Marie's brown eyes when I told her I was leaving again. I guess she thought that I was gonna stay now, that Alkali Lake had somehow sealed our little fucked up family together. In reality it had separated me further from the happy little X-men community. I had killed the only man who could've told me the truth about my past, I had turned my back on him and decided to go it alone. Well lemme tell you something: whatever jackass came up with the phrase "Ignorance is bliss" never had to go through life not knowing about his past. Never knowing if he had a family, a wife, kids, what kind of man he was before he was turned into a killing machine. Ignorance isn't bliss; ignorance is torture, hell.

Well Charles, I'm willing to try anything to get rid of this hell, no matter how much I hate the idea of keeping a diary like some little brownnosing schoolboy. So here it goes…

Last night, I saw Marie. It was Liberty Island all over again, and as I held her lifeless body in my arms, all the pain and agony of that moment hit me again like a sledgehammer to the gut. I took off my glove and touched her cheek, silently begging her to come back to me. But instead of absorbing my healing abilities like she was supposed to, I felt myself being sucked into her mind.

Suddenly we were in Alkali Lake, in one of my goddamned nightmares of those torturous experiments. Only instead of me in that tank of green fluids, it was Marie. She was naked, and those pen marks covered her body like some sort of cult tattoo. Her eyes were shut; she looked as if she were dead in that watery coffin. The only thing that told me otherwise was the steady beeping of the EKG behind her, monitoring her vitals. One of those bastards picked up an instrument, and suddenly Marie's eyes flew open. She saw him and began screaming my name, thrashing about in the water. I wanted to help her, but it was like a pane of glass separated us, and no matter how many times I tried to break it down, it remained impenetrable. She continued screaming my name, begging me to save her, but I couldn't.

The gruesome tool came closer and closer to my Marie's face, and just before it touched her cheek, she looked directly at me, her terrified eyes locked with mine and I could hear her say, "You promised they couldn't hurt me…you promised…" And then I woke up.

There you go, Professor. I don't know what astounding information you are gonna get out of that, but I know that all I got was a hell of a lot of pain. Screw this, I'm going out. There's gotta be some place in this decadent town where I can go drown myself in liquor and find me a woman who doesn't care that I don't know her name…just don't let it be Maria.


	2. Looking for Miracles

_Looking for Miracles _

December 3

It's lunch hour right now, but I'm too tired to go down to the kitchen. So while everyone else is downstairs making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, I slipped up to my dorm and tried to lie down for a nap. Of course it didn't work; it never works. I can't sleep during the day. I think it's because my brain is awake, even if my body's not. So I'm lying on my bed with my Discman playing, writing in my notebook instead.

My brain should be tired though, after all, it was so damn imaginative last night. I woke up around three in the morning, drenched in a cold sweat and panting as if I had just run a marathon. My heart was pounding in my chest, the nightmare still fresh in my mind. This wasn't one of Logan's though, this was a new one. In it, I was standing alone on a cliff in a gorgeous black silk nightgown, the kind that you see in a Victoria's Secret window, with black lace and thin little straps. It hugged my body in all the right spots, with a plunging neckline and a slit up the side clear up to the middle of my thigh. You know, the kind I could never wear in real life.

It was pouring rain, and thunder rumbled like a twenty-one gun salute. I was drenched from head to toe, and my hair stuck to my face, plastered there by the fat raindrops. Suddenly, I heard a scuffle of rocks, and then someone screamed in the darkness. A brilliant flash of lightening illuminated the nighttime, giving me a clear view of a tiny hand clutching the edge of the cliff, the body dangling over the wall.

I ran towards the edge, my bare feet splashing in the icy puddles. God, it was cold, and the rain felt like needles on my exposed skin. I peered over the side, and gasped in horror. Nikki, one of the youngest students and a telepath, had fallen over the rim of the cliff and was hanging off it by one hand. The ten-year-old girl was desperately trying to grab the edge with her other hand, but she barely had the upper body strength to hold onto the cliff.

"Rogue!" she screamed, her voice piercing through the thunderclap. "Help me!"

"Hold on, Nikki!" I cried back over the storm. I bent down to clasp her hand and haul her up, when I realized the awful truth: I didn't have any gloves. My pale skin shone luminously in the darkness, alluring and deceptive in its beauty. My bare hand hovered just inches from Nikki's, wanting to save her, but knowing that if I touched her, I could kill her.

"Rogue!" she begged again. "Please!" She was crying hysterically, fear racing through her baby blue eyes.

Before I could decide what to do, the rock underneath her fingers crumbled, and she lost what little grip she had. She screamed in terror, and for a split second I thought that I had lost her. I dropped down to the ground, laying down and craning my head over the edge. The rain pounded me ruthlessly, and through the drops I could see Nikki about three feet below me, her tiny fingers scrambling over the flaky handhold.

Watching the sheer panic in the child's eyes terrified me. I decided that I had to try and save her, no matter what risks were involved. Maybe if I pulled her up quickly enough and let go as soon as she was safe, nothing would happen. Carefully, I dangled one of my arms over the edge and could almost touch her fingers.

"Nikki!" I called, shouting over the noise of the storm. "Listen to me! You have to reach up and grab my hand. Understand? You have to reach up and grab my hand!"

She nodded her head, and using every bit of strength her tiny body had left, she reached up with her free hand and brushed my fingers once.

I felt a static tingle run through me as the tips of her fingers barely grazed my own, not from my power, but from the simple fact that I had felt another human's flesh. A tiny shock, as if I had run a balloon over a wool sweater. I felt the hair rise up on the back of my neck. Then, just as fast as it had come, the sensation passed.

"Once more, Nikki!" I cried, clearing my head of any after effects I might have had from it. "You're almost there!"

The rain was coming down in sheets now, so fast that I could barely see three feet in front of me. Thunder crashed like a military drum corps, and the lightening burst through the night sky like a finale in a forth of July fireworks display. Faintly, I could smell the burnt scent of ozone in the air. I could make out Nikki's blue eyes in the darkness; she was terrified. Her tiny body hung above what seemed like a bottomless pit, and the handhold she had was slipping dangerously.

She stretched her arm out as far as she could; I did the same. Slowly, we bridged the millimeter gap that divided us, until I snatched her hand and held on for dear life.

Never could I have imagined the electric sensation that flooded my body as that contact was made. It was as if I was struck by one of the many lightening bolts in the storm; maybe I had, I don't know for sure. All I know is that it was a white hot, pulsing sense of pain and ecstasy all at once, and I felt it coursing through my veins, filling my body with that rawness. For a moment, one precious moment, there was no cliff, no storm, no Nikki even. There was only the knowledge that I, Rogue the Untouchable, was feeling another person's flesh, feeling that softness without a protective barrier between us. It was raw and real, and for a moment, I wanted it more than anything else in the world.

I held onto her hand for only a second or two, but it felt like an eternity. Then my mutation began to kick in, and the electrocution began to turn into a sort of pulling feeling. Suddenly I could hear Nikki's thoughts, screaming in fear. No words, just one long, piercing scream. I nearly let go and put my hands over my ears it hurt so badly, but I knew that it wouldn't help.

Trying my best to ignore the shrill resonance of her thoughts, I began to pull her up at what seemed like an agonizingly slow pace. As I dragged her towards me, I saw her face, the blue veins showing under the pale, wet skin. I had to hurry; if I held on much longer she could die. Her body was tiny, it couldn't take a barrage of power like mine.

She was a foot away when a wave of memories washed over me. Birthday parties, classes, books she'd read, one of the older girls taking her to see _Freaky Friday_ at the movie theater downtown. The night the school was attacked, running through the woods, watching her roommates Krystal and Shayla shot with tranquilizing darts and captured by Stryker's men. Watching Jubilee, Kitty and I come back from McDonalds one night; Jubes giving her a Happy Meal as a surprise. Wanting to be like the 'big girls' of the school, wearing gloves like Rogue and some dress-up, plastic bangles to look like Kitty's sterling sliver ones. Playing on the cliff, wanting to see how far down it went and slipping on the loose ground…

Before I knew it, I had Nikki on the ground next to me. I let go of her hand, dropping it like it was a hot potato, and the surge of memories was cut off abruptly. Apprehensively I looked at her face. She was white as a sheet, and her breathing was shallow and uneven. What scared me the most though was her nearly neon blue eyes, staring at me from their sunken depths. As her telepathic powers slowly faded from my mind, I could pick up the faint thread of her thoughts, and what I heard horrified me. _Why'd Rogue hurt me?_

I woke up breathless, as I said. All I could think about was Nikki's final revelation. She thought that I drained her on purpose. I could feel my heart break in two, and tears rolled down my face as I gripped my quilt till my knuckles turned white. "I'm so sorry, Nikki," I whispered into my pillow. "It was an accident."

Never had I wished more that I could control my power. As far as I know, I am the only person at this school who cannot control her mutation. Not even here do I completely belong, as much as everyone tries to include me in everything. The fact is that contact sports like basketball and soccer are damn near impossible for me to play without wearing a full body suit, and I'll die before I walk around like Catwoman in broad daylight. So I pretend that I hate sports, that I prefer to watch the kids play from the sidelines. I act as if I don't like swimming in the pool during those hot summer months here at the institute, when really I want to rip off my clothes and jump in the cool, refreshing water. I pretend that I don't mind when I see Kitty and Colossus kissing and holding hands after classes in the rec room. I make believe I love my life the way it is, and sometime I even have myself believing my lies. After all, I've got two fantastic best friends, Kitty and Jubilee; a very sweet, very cute boyfriend of five months, Bobby Drake; and I go to one of the best and most fun schools in the country.

But at the end of the day, when I'm curled up in my bed and just about to fall asleep, the truth comes swooping in on the black wings of the nighttime sky. In the past two years, I have felt three people's bare skin against mine. Three people. That's about an average of how many human beings normal teens come in contact with in the span of one hour. Not a day goes by where I don't pray to whatever preternatural deity may be up there—Jesus, Allah, Shiva, Buddha, anyone who's willing to listen, I don't care who really, I'm flexible—that I might be able to touch a person without hurting them. Asking for divine intervention, a natural phenomenon, a miracle. And you know what? Not one damn prayer has been answered.

I've never felt more vulnerable in my life than at that moment. All I wanted was someone to hold me in their arms and let me cry, but the same cold realization hit me harder than it ever has before: I can't touch anyone, and what's worse, no one can ever touch me.

Oh shit, lunch has been over for ten minutes. Scott is gonna kill me for being late to his math class. God, can my life get any worse?

˜™

Dec 5

Alcohol is an amazing thing. I don't know any other legal substance that can numb all the pain inside, make you forget everything. Granted I have to drink more than most guys to really forget, but once I reach my peak, it's heaven, or something close to it. Once I get enough alcohol inside me, I don't remember anything; nothing matters but the here and now. Ironic really, that I can't remember my past, but I want to forget the present.

Last night was a perfect example of it. I found a pretty popular dive on the outskirts of Mexico City a few days ago. You know the place I'm talking about, dark, loud, reeking of drunks and full of free flowing booze; there's a million of them out there in the world, havens for people like me. People who want to forget.

I followed the glow of the neon star outside La Estrella Negra like some modern day Magi trying to find a savior. I found it all right. The sign promised beer, women and fights on a nightly basis. Alleluia, and thank God.

So I walked in and sure enough there was a cage match going on in the smoke filled bar, two short Mexicans duking it out behind the chain link fence, and guys cheering and taunting in Spanish phrases they don't teach you in school. Hookers were enticing the men into dark corners. Beer bottles shattered against a wall. I inhaled the scent of the smoke and booze and sighed. Welcome home, Wolverine.

I pushed my way towards the bar, brushing easily past the crowd of loud, abrasive Mexicans who were at least a foot shorter than me. I stuck out like a sore thumb in this place, but I didn't care. Shoving a random drunk off of a stool, I took a seat and turned to the bartender. "Beer," I said, dropping some pesos (I had no idea how much) on the bar.

I may not speak a word of Spanish, but one thing I've learned from my travels is that the language of money is understood worldwide. The cash was swept off the counter faster than I set it down, and two seconds later, a cool, refreshing bottle of Mexican grade booze was in my hand. I took a long swig of it, then plunked it down on the bar with a sigh.

Two bottles of beer and half of a cigar later, I felt a light tap on my shoulder. I turned around and through the hazy smoke I could see a stunning Mexican woman smiling at me. She wore a skintight red miniskirt that left little to the imagination, I realized as my eyes followed the yards of tanned flesh up her calf and smoothly over her knee and thigh. Her black shirt was some sort of off the shoulder number that pushed her breasts up into full view, much to the pleasure of my more animalistic side.

She smiled at me, watching me take her all in. Goddamn, she was gorgeous! "Hola señor," she said, her voice low and seductive. She slid closer to me, like a snake slithering towards its prey. The closer she got, the more something inside me longed for her. She leaned in towards me and whispered rapid Spanish in my ear. I could feel her soft, warm breath brushing against my cheek and nearly groaned at the craving I felt. I wanted her, I wanted to feel her next to me.

With every once of strength in me, I pulled myself away and looked into her warm chocolate eyes. "I don't speak Spanish, hun," I told her. "But damn do I wish I did."

To my surprise she laughed, tossing her long, curling black hair over her bare shoulder carelessly. "Ah, yo veo," she said. "Ud. está un americano, ¿sí?"

"Yeah," I replied, having no clue what she was saying. I turned my back on her, but she placed a hand on my shoulder and spun me slowly around again till I faced that unbelievable body of hers.

"Don't worry, americano," she said softly, her words dripping with a honey sweet Spanish accent. "I speak English."

I was stunned, and she laughed again, flashing pearly white teeth. She was the epitome of modern beauty: tall, unnaturally thin, long hair and silicone breasts too large to fit her frame. She was definitely stunning, a total knockout by any guy's standards.

"What brought you to Mexicó?" she asked me, wrapping one long leg around mine. "Business or pleasure?" She winked and began playing with the collar of my shirt. I was burning with untamed desire; I wanted her. The lust smoldered inside me like the red-hot end of my cigar.

I reached up and touched one of her long black curls. "Neither," I said, my voice low and gravelly. "Tryin' to get away."

"From what?" she asked softly, her lush, cherry red lips barely inches from mine. At some point her other leg had made its way, snakelike, up and was now casually draped over my thigh, showing me just how much that skirt of hers could stretch. God, she was playing with fire, and I doubt she would mind if she got burned.

"Life," I told her, leaning back against the bar.

I stretched my arms out across it, and watched her as she slid into my lap, still facing me. She placed her hands on my chest and leaned in close. Overcome with desire, I leaned my head back and shut my eyes. She ran a blood red nail across my cheek, and I stifled a groan. "La vida es cruel," she told me, whispering in my ear, voice low and seductive. "Pero yo puedo hacer que todos tus problemas desaparecen."

She switched to my other ear, and translated, "Life is cruel, but I can make all your problems disappear. You can forget about everyone and everything por una noche, americano. I can be your little Mexican miracle for a few pesos." She kissed my neck softly, making a trail them of up to my ear. "You want a miracle, don't you americano?" she whispered, her voice barely audible over the din of the cage match going on behind us.

That did it. I set down my empty bottle and snuffed out my cigar, and within five minutes, me and the Mexican senorita were on my motorcycle (Thanks, Cyke.) headed for my hotel.

I'll spare you the details of the night, for your peace of mind. Just know that the hooker was right: I did forget about everything, "por una noche." (See, this is an educational trip. A few more nights like this and who knows what other Spanish phrases I might pick up.) Eventually we both fell asleep in each other's arms, exhausted.

I woke up around sunrise, shaken. Frantically, I looked around, and there she was, sleeping like an angel on my bare chest. The sheet just barely covered her up, and her black curls tumbled about, contrasting with the white sheets. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that it was the same woman from the bar.

Sliding her off of me gently, I slipped out of the bed and stepped into the shower. There was no hot water, but frankly, I think I could've used a cold one then. As I let the water run over me, I thought about the dream I had. In it, the night basically replayed itself, only instead of this gorgeous Mexican woman that was straddling me in the bar and whispering Spanish into my ear, it was Jean. Of all the women in the world, it figures that it would be her. God, was she hot in that sexy little red mini. Not to mention that for the first time since I had met her, she was actually coming onto me. Now _that_ was a welcome change, lemme tell you.

But when we got back to my hotel room, I turned around and saw Jean fading. She was transparent and flickering in and out of focus. She was still smiling seductively at me, not noticing the horrified look on my face. I reached out and grabbed her hand, but it was like grabbing air. Unable to watch her beautiful face disappear from my life for a second time, I turned and made for the door.

I had just placed my hand on the knob when I felt a soft touch on my shoulder. I turned around, hardly daring to believe that Jean was still there. But she wasn't. Now it was Marie who stood in front of me, dressed to kill, literally in her case; she had so much skin exposed it would've been damn near impossible to touch her. She smiled gently and said, "Hey, sugah." Her voice dripped with that soft southern accent, making me melt inside.

I know I shouldn't have, but for God's sake, I'm only a man and Jesus Christ she was one hell of a woman. I stepped over to her and brushed a lock her hair behind her ear. She smiled again and reached up a gloveless hand to touch my face. For a moment I was petrified and almost pulled away, but something told me to stay put. Her soft fingertips made contact with my cheek, and I thought that I was gonna die. Not because she was sucking the life out of me, but the exact opposite: she was touching me and nothing was happening.

Too stunned to do anything, I was hardly prepared for what she did next. She stepped in close to me, stood on her toes, and gave me one of the best kisses I've had in a long time. Long, passionate, and full of desire. And to my surprise, I returned it with just as much passion, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her tight against me. She was mine, and there was no way I was gonna let her go, not now, not after she could finally touch me. I lifted her off of the floor and carried her towards the bed…

Jesus Christ, I'm a fucking pedophile! I am one sick old man. She is seventeen for Christ's sake! And what's more, she's my Marie, my innocent Marie, not some little Mexican slut! I am definitely going to burn in hell for even thinking about this.

The worst part though, is that a part of me—a sick, perverted, _wrong_ part of me—wonders what it would be like if Marie loved me as much as she did in that dream. Would I love her back, or would I do what I always did with women: pretend they were someone else? I mean, after all, didn't she start out as Jean? But why did Jean become my Marie in the first place? This is so goddamn confusing…

I got out of the shower and got dressed in a hurry. Throwing my leather jacket on, I pulled out my wallet and left a good-sized wad of pesos on the bedside table, knowing she'd find it eventually. Let her sleep for now, she's got a rough life. I shut the door quietly behind me, and made my way to my motorcycle. Strapping my bag onto the back, I revved the engine and shot out of that parking lot faster than a bat outta hell.

Right now I'm at a McDonald's about fifty miles outside Mexico City, eating lunch and scribbling away in this book like a fuckin' pansy or something. I hate the fact that I am actually doing what Charles asked, but I can't get this shit outta my mind. One lesson has been learned from all this though: that is the last time I drink Mexican beer. It screws with your mind; why else would I have pictured Marie in that dream? From now on, I stick with good ol' American Budweiser. God bless the U.S.A.


	3. Reflection

_Reflection _

December 9

I was in Storm's Ancient Civilization class today, when she stopped in the middle of her lecture to tell me that the professor wanted to see me in his office. Scared the hell outta me when she jumped straight from the Indus Valley people to that, but it's nothing new around here. Why have an intercom system when you can just telepathically send your thoughts to anyone you're trying to talk to?

So I got up, grabbed my books, and headed down to Professor Xavier's office, blushing at the stares I got from some of my classmates. I've never liked being the center of attention; unfortunately for me, that seems to happen a lot.

When I reached the oak paneled door, I placed my hand up to knock, but before I could, I heard the professor's voice in my mind. _Come in, please, Rogue. _

I jumped a mile. Never did get used to someone talking to me in my head anytime he pleases, even if it is a nice guy like the professor.

I slipped inside and saw Professor Xavier and Scott smiling at me warmly. The professor behind his large, polished oak desk, and behind him I could see the snow falling gently outside, perfectly clean and sparkling in the dim sunlight. To the right of him, a large fire roared in the huge stone fireplace, warming the room with its cheerful glow. Books and maps lined the oak paneled walls, and priceless paintings as well. In the center of the room was a large, oriental carpet that looked as though it had never been walked on. Everything in that room was perfect, like a picture out of a furniture magazine.

"Storm said you wanted to see me professor?" I asked, feeling rather on the spot.

"Rogue, please have a seat." He gestured to one of the plush leather chairs that sat opposite his desk. "There's someone I want to introduce you to."

I walked forward, but stopped when I saw a girl sitting in the other chair, her eyes staring down at her shaking hands. Her skin was a beautiful shade of warm tan; I guessed that she had Asian or Middle Eastern blood in her family. She was small and thin, as if she hadn't had a good meal in a long time, and her long black hair was tangled and fell forward, hiding her face. She wore jeans and a faded purple coat that looked like it had been used for a while. She was so fragile looking I thought that if she fell off that chair, she just might break into a thousand pieces.

"Rogue, I'd like you to meet Kareena Dev. Kareena this is Rogue, one of our oldest students here at the school."

"It's nice to meet you, Kareena," I said, extending my hand.

The girl nodded silently, refusing to look up. She kept her hands firmly clasped in her lap, and I slowly brought mine back down again, feeling slightly embarrassed.

"Kareena just arrived here from St. Louis, and I was wondering if you wouldn't mind giving her a tour of the campus and getting her settled in her room?" Professor Xavier asked me, his voice calm and pleasant, as if everything about Kareena's timidity was completely routine.

"Sure, professor," I replied, keeping my voice just as placid as his own.

"Wonderful," he said, smiling and leaning back in his wheelchair.

"She's going to room with Tonya and Skye," Scott interjected. "Why don't you take her there first and get her stuff unpacked?"

I nodded. "No problem. Is that cool with you, Kareena?"

Again, a small nod, face veiled behind a curtain of hair.

"Well then," Professor Xavier said as he wheeled himself out from behind his desk, "welcome to my school for the gifted, Kareena." He stopped next to her chair and gently laid his hand on her shoulder. "You don't have to be scared anymore," he said softly, soothingly. "You'll be safe here. I promise."

For the first time, the girl lifted her head from the floor and looked at the professor with wide, fearful eyes. But I saw a flicker of hope in them, and a shadow of a smile fluttered over her lips, like a ghost of something once beautiful. But then, as soon as it came, it was gone. She was like the deer that used to appear occasionally back in the fields of Mississippi. They were beautiful and serene, but as soon as they realized that they were being watched, they panicked and bolted for the woods.

The professor smiled and then left the room, Scott following him like a shadow. The door shut behind them, and Kareena and I were left alone in a suddenly pressing silence. Neither of us said anything for a moment, then I decided to try and break the ice. "You are really going to like it here, Kareena," I said, trying to be as cheerful as I could. "It's great, and all the students are just like us."

She nodded again, big surprise. Sighing, I pulled the other chair close to her and sat down. Leaning forward on my elbows, looked at her, dark black hair pulled around her like a protective shield, the tan skin of her face concealed beneath it. "Kareena," I said soothingly, "do you want to talk?"

She shook her head slowly, hair waving back and forth.

"That's fine," I whispered. "But if you ever need to, I'm here, okay?" Cautiously, I reached out and held one of her shaking hands in my black satin gloved one. "It's like the professor said: you don't have to be scared anymore."

When she didn't respond, I had just about given up trying to get her to talk until she slowly brought her head up and looked at me with her soft brown eyes. "Okay," she said softly.

_Okay. _It wasn't a sentence, just a word, but hearing it come from her made me unexplainably happy. If I accomplished nothing else with Kareena, at least I'd have gained her trust just a little bit. I smiled and rose from my chair. "Well, how about I give you a tour of the place," I told her. "And we can swing by the kitchen and grab you some food. You look starved."

Kareena stood up and tucked her wild mane behind her ears. I could see her whole face now for the first time. She grabbed a duffle bag that I hadn't noticed before, and together we left the professor's office and headed down the hall and up to the third floor of the mansion, where the dorms were.

"Your room is this way," I said as we walked up the stairs. "From here, you go down this hall to the girls' wing and the first door on the right." I led her along the dictated route and opened the door. Inside were three beds; two were unmade and had clothing tossed on top of them, and the third was empty, nothing but a mattress with some sheets, a comforter and a pillow. Tonya and Skye had pushed their beds closer together, but the third lay almost forgotten in the far corner of the room.

As I helped Kareena unpack her back and stuff everything into the chest of drawers inside her closet, I came across a framed photograph. An Indian couple stood smiling happily underneath a weeping willow tree. The woman wore a beautiful gold and red sari, and her husband (I assumed) wore a business suit and tie. "Who's this?" I asked, handing her the silver frame.

She blushed and tucked it back inside the bag. "No one," she muttered as she tossed the bag under the bed. "At least, not anymore," she whispered, more to herself than to me.

But I'm not stupid, nor blind, and I saw the tear escape from her eye as she grabbed one of the sheets and began making the bed. My heart went out to her; I ran away from my home, too, when I found out that I was a mutant. Actually, most of the students are runaways. I mean, Mom and Dad usually aren't too keen on the idea of a hated mutant in the house. Sort of puts a bad stain on the family name. The way I figured, it was easier on everyone if I just left. After all, I had always wanted to go to Alaska. Almost made it, too.

I took the other end of the sheet, and together we finished making the bed, pulling the sky blue comforter down to reveal the forest green underside. "All finished," I said. "Now…" But I trailed off as I looked up and saw her standing there, tears rolling down her cheeks helplessly.

"Oh Kareena, don't cry." I walked over to the other side of the bed and sat her gently down on it. "Hey, it's gonna be all right," I told her gently, sitting down next to her. "I promise." But could I really promise that to her? God, where the hell was Jean when you needed her? She always used to handle student orientation, helping new kids adjust, and offering consoling when you needed it. Jean always knew the right thing to say, how to help.

But me? I'm seventeen years old; I don't know how to take care of a grieving child, especially one that's been through a traumatic experience like Kareena. Hell, I barely know how to handle my own feelings, let alone someone else's.

"Do you want to tell me about it?" I asked tentatively. "I'm not saying that I can help, but I can listen, Kareena. If nothing else I can do that."

I could see the struggle in her eyes, whether or not to tell me her secrets. Then, she slid off the bed and reached back under, pulling out the bag. She took out the silver frame and held it tightly against her chest as she climbed back on the bed next to me, the tiny little thing that she was. She showed me the picture of the couple again. "These are my parents," she explained. "They moved here from India when my mom was pregnant with me. They wanted me to be born in the 'land of the free, home of the brave,'" she said with a short laugh.

"But a month ago, I found out that I…that I could do this." She concentrated for a moment. Then she held up her hand, and I saw rings of electricity emanating from them. "I couldn't control it very well—still can't, to be honest."

I watched her, as stared at her hands. She wasn't telling me the story; she was lost in her own thoughts now. "I was at school when it first happened. I had gotten into an argument with another girl. She was mocking my mom for her accent and the way she dressed. Usually just I let that kind of stuff slide. I figure that people are ignorant and stupid, and it's just not worth getting upset over.

"But that day I just didn't want to hear it. I was in one of those moods, you know? The kind where you just don't want to put up with anyone's crap. So I started yelling at her, calling her things that shouldn't have been said. Swore at her a couple of times in Hindi," she recalled with a half smile. "That ticked her off even more I think, not knowing what I was saying. So she hit me, a solid punch right in the jaw. I bit my tongue and felt the blood pooling up in my mouth. It was nasty, but I didn't feel the pain as much as I felt the fury. I tackled her, and we were both rolling around in the grass, beating each other as the other students egged us on.

"That's when it happened. It was like all my anger went into my hands and came out as these piercing bolts of lightening. I still remember the look on her face. She stopped fighting me, and her eyes got huge. She was gasping for breath, and then she started convulsing underneath me. I didn't even realize what had happened till some teachers pulled me off of her. By that time I wasn't zapping her anymore, but she was still shaking and blood was coming out of her nose, even though I don't remember hitting her there.

"Long story short, I was expelled from school for possession and use of a weapon, namely a stun gun. I didn't say I did it, but I didn't argue either. I just stayed silent and let them carry on. I mean, how do you tell your school principal that you're a mutant, but you didn't know it till just then? I didn't expect anyone to believe me; I barely believed me. If I hadn't accidentally zapped my television and fried it later that night, I wouldn't have understood it at all."

"Wait a minute," I interrupted. "If they never found the stun gun, how could they have accused you of having it?"

Kareena looked at me pointedly. "Think about it. If twenty students who were watching you swore that you electrocuted someone, do you really think that not finding the weapon would make much of a difference? They said that I dropped it and it got lost in the fight."

Kareena sighed. It was as if she were shrinking before my eyes. "My parents were furious, to say the least. Mama kept crying and praying to Saraswati, asking what she had done to deserve me. And Daddy was livid, telling me that I had brought shame to the family name and what would they tell everyone? I would have to go to court, testify, the whole nine yards."

"Kareena, why would your parents be so angry with you? You couldn't control what happened, unless…" It dawned on me slowly, and my eyes grew wide. "You didn't tell them, did you?"

She shook her head. "My parents were so ashamed of me all ready. I didn't want to embarrass them even more. They wouldn't have understood; like I said, I barely understood. All I knew was that they didn't wasn't me for their daughter anymore. So I left. Got on a bus from St. Louis and rode up here. Somewhere along the line I heard about a school for gifted students, and there were rumors about what kind of 'gifts.' So I decided to see for myself. I didn't think they'd actually be true."

She looked up at me with her brown eyes full of pain and self-loathing. "The thing is, I don't think that I have a gift. I have a curse. After all, what kind of gift separates a child from her mother, brings shame to her family, and nearly kills another person?"

She stopped, looking at me, expecting an answer. I knew she wanted reassurance; she wanted some sort of solace. After all, I was the older, wiser mutant. I should have been able to console her, to tell her that sometimes the true good nature of gifts is hidden. It's what Jean would've done; it's what I should have done.

But I didn't. I couldn't bring myself to lie to that innocent, pleading face. Because the truth is, I was agreeing with every word she said. I mean, what kind of "gift" puts a child through all of that trauma so early on? No kid should have to come to such harsh realizations about life so soon.

What kind of gift makes a little boy hurt someone because he can't control his own strength? What kind of good fortune forces a man to wear a visor that can never be removed from his eyes lest he kill everyone, or a brilliant doctor treated like an ape just because his outward appearance is that of a beast? And what about a gift that causes a man to never remember his past, and a girl to never be able to feel another person's flesh?

I felt a tear roll down my face as well, and I placed an arm around Kareena's shoulder and pulled her close. She buried her head in my sweatshirt and sobbed quietly. I could feel her tears soaking through the soft wool, and I wished that I could feel her skin, feel her hand clutching mine without the satin barricade between us.

I lost track of how much time the two of us spent sitting there on her bed. Finally I forced myself to pull away from her, and I cradled her face in between my hands. "Listen Kareena," I whispered. "Don't forget about your parents. Give them time, and one day they will learn to accept you for who you are. Someday when you're ready, you'll show them what you can do. But until then, don't make the same mistake I did. Don't shut them out of your life forever, because you'll regret it everyday."

I took the picture from her and placed it on the desk next to her bed. "There's not many people out there that'll understand what you're going through, Kareena, but there'll always be someone here for you. Remember that, okay?"

Suddenly, we were interrupted by a loud rumbling noise. Kareena looked down at her stomach, embarrassed. "I'm a little hungry," she admitted with a small grin, wiping her eyes on her shirtsleeve.

"No kidding, sounds like an earthquake's happening down there," I responded laughingly. I jumped off of the bed, and she followed, her mind more on food now than family. "What are you hungry for?" I asked as crossed the room and made our way amid the clutter of clothes and preteen magazines.

"The biggest banana spilt that you can make," she said instantly, "with extra nuts and hot fudge."

I laughed, and we made our way down to the kitchen, where I proceeded to open the subzero fridge and dump three huge scoops of vanilla ice cream in between two bananas. Kareena watched eagerly, perched on the edge of one of the barstools for the island. When I was through, I slid the bowl and a spoon down to her, and she dug in happily.

As I watched her tiny frame devour and pack away more ice cream than I would ever be able to eat in a lifetime, she stopped and smiled. "Thanks, Rogue," she said shyly.

"Hmm?" I asked, not really listening. "Oh yeah, no problem. Anyone can make a sundae."

"No, I mean, for…well, you know…" She shifted uncomfortably on the barstool.

I realized what she was talking about and smiled. "It's no problem, really. You'll fit in fine here, Kareena. Trust me…"

Later that night, I was in the rec room with Bobby shooting pool and contemplating everything that had happened today. Jubes, Colossus and Kitty were watching reruns of _Friends _and _Will and Grace_. When I scratched for the second time that game, Bobby came over and slipped his hand around my waist, but I pulled out of his grasp.

"What's the matter, Rogue?" he asked, his face concerned.

I shook my head. "Nothing," I mumbled, lining up for my next shot. "Just tired."

"Come on baby," he said as he walked over to me, placing his cue in front of mine so that I couldn't shoot. "Something's bothering you. What's up?"

"I said it was nothing, Bobby," I repeated, my voice becoming a bit icy. "Can I shoot please?"

He stepped back, looking wounded. "Fine, don't get bitchy on me."

"Bitchy?" I stopped mid shot and turned towards him. "Listen Bobby, I said I was just tired. Why do you always have to keep pressing me?"

Before Bobby could respond, Jubilee appeared between us. "Chill out, you two. Bobby, just leave the girl alone. Rogue, honey, save the PMS till we can get some ice cream and a chick flick tomorrow night, okay?"

Never one for tact, Jubes spoke her mind and embarrassed me in the process. I glared at her, but bit my tongue. I know she didn't mean it, and besides, I didn't mean to be so harsh towards Bobby either. So I shut my mouth and finally took my shot…and watched the cue ball roll and sink into the far left corner pocket.

"God, I am just not with it tonight!" I growled in frustration.

"No kidding, if this was baseball, you'd be screwed," Jubilee commented. "That's your third strike in fifteen minutes."

"Thanks for the reminder, Jubes," I remarked. Putting my cue back on the rack, I sighed. "Listen, I'm gonna go upstairs and crash. I'm wiped. We'll have a rematch tomorrow, okay hun?" I told Bobby, seeing his disappointed face.

Nevertheless, he came over and gave me a warm hug, and whispered in my ear, "I love you."

I smiled, kissed my fingertips and pressed them to his lips. It's sort of our way of kissing, since prolonged liplock seems to have a less than desirable effect. "I love you, too, Bobby," I whispered back.

He smiled that warm, sexy smile that always seems to make me melt inside. I always tease his about it, saying that he's supposed to be the Iceman, but that he's having a reverse effect on me. "Night, Rogue," he said, letting me go.

"See ya later, chica," Jubilee said, snatching up my pool cue from the wall. "I'd go up with you, but I've been dying to shoot some stick all night, and you and Loverboy have been hogging the table."

I grinned. Jubes was either a severe protagonist or an antagonist—no middle ground, but it was her sarcasm that could usually bring levity to a tense situation. "See you." I turned towards the couch, where Kitty was nestled up in Colossus's strong arms. "Hey Kitty, you coming?"

Kitty groaned and slowly pulled herself up. "I don't want to, but Mr. Summers will kill me if I don't have my trig homework done for the third day in a row. I don't see the point of it, personally. I'm never going to need trigonometry to become a fashion designer anyway."

With a quick kiss goodbye to Colossus, she and I made our way up to the room that us three girls shared. I opened the door and entered a whirlwind of color, clothes and Orlando Bloom posters, courtesy of Jubes and Kitty. He was their current celebrity crush of the week, and as such, he had the honor of adorning every available closet door. Over the summer, the professor gave us permission to change the walls from boring beige to our own color palette. After watching _Trading Spaces_ reruns religiously for a month, we finally decided to go with jewel tones: one wall emerald green, another sapphire blue, and the remaining two were a ruby red and a deep, rich amethyst. The end result was a whirlwind of color that actually meshed quite well together.

It was my brilliant idea (if I do say so myself) to use saris for the window drapes, and so the three of us went to an Indian store and bought gorgeous, embroidered saris that matched the walls and hung them to really pull the colors together. Finally, we all took as many vanilla scented candles as we could find in the entire city of Westchester and placed them around the room. It was a gorgeous result, and a credit to our unofficial instructors from _Trading Spaces. _

Entering the room now, I took a deep breath of the vanilla scent that had affixed itself permanently to our belongings. I flopped down on my bed amidst the beaded and fringed throw pillows and tried to relax, but something was hovering in the back of my mind.

Rolling over, I looked at Kitty who sat in deep concentration, trig book in one hand a calculator in the other. "Hey Kit, do you mind if I play a little music?" I asked her.

"Fine by me," she said, not looking up from her assignment.

Reaching across to my desk, I swiped up the remote to our stereo system that we went in on together as a Christmas gift. I switched to the third CD and hit play. The guitar rifts and drumbeats of Fuel came pulsing out of the speakers.

"Oh no," Kitty said from her bed. "What's wrong?" she asked me, setting her torturous assignment to one side.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, sitting up.

"Rogue, I've lived with you for two years now," she responded, coming over to my bed and sitting down opposite me. "Whenever something is bothering you, you always come in here, dive into your bed, and play Fuel till two in the morning."

"Not always," I argued.

"No," she agreed, "sometimes it's Metallica or Linkin Park."

I blushed, knowing that she was right. "What can I say? I'm a creature of habit."

"So spill," she said, swinging her legs up on the bed and sitting Indian-style.

I sighed. "I'm not sure what's the matter with me. I think I'm just having an off day. I was showing the new girl around today, you know, Kareena Dev?"

"Yeah, the electric one," Kitty recalled.

I nodded and absently began playing with the embroidery on my bedspread that I made from left over saris. "Well, I started thinking that Jean used to do all the orientation, and she was really good at it. She really made the students feel at home and safe, you know?"

Kitty gave a sad smile. "Yeah, I remember when I met her for the first time. My parents had shipped me up here, and I was so scared of everything. She really brought me out of my shell."

"She reassured me about everything, and she let me sneak in to see Logan down in the med lab," I remembered. "She knew how worried I was about him."

I felt a stab of pain when I thought of Logan but tried to shake it off. "Well, today I tried my best with Kareena, but all I could think about was how much better at this Jean was."

"The girl seemed all right at dinner," Kitty commented. "A little quiet, but most of the new kids are their first few days."

"Yeah, I know," I continued. "But the thing is, Kareena broke down and told me her story, and at the end of it, I didn't know what to do. I mean, I could feed her the bullshit lines: 'It'll be all right, I promise,' and 'Give yourself time, and you'll see how wonderful your mutation can be.' You know, that stuff. But the thing was, I couldn't. I would feel like such a dirty liar, because I know there's a lot of mutants out there whose powers are more of a burden than an advantage. But how do you tell a petrified little gift that and not expect her to be scared out of her mind?"

"So what did you tell her?" Kitty asked.

"I told her that there would always be someone here if she needed to talk."

"So what's the problem?"

"I just wished I could've done more," I responded. "I mean, I know that Jean would've had a hundred and one different ways to console her, and I couldn't think of one."

"Honey, listen," Kitty said gently. "Jean's gone, and no one can replace her. The professor's certainly not going to try to, and I seriously doubt he expects you to take her place." She placed her hand on my gloved one. "You don't have to be Jean, you just have to be Rogue."

I smiled, and Kitty leaned over and gave me a hug. "So can we turn off this stuff and listen to something a little more uplifting please?"

I laughed, and Kitty switched to an old Madonna CD. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a trig assignment that I have to flunk."

She retreated back to her bed and buried herself among her notes and books again. I pulled out a book and read for an hour or more until Jubes finally came back from the rec room, proudly waving ten dollars. "I kicked Bobby's ass," she announced as we changed into our pajamas and migrated to the joint bathroom that we shared with the two girls next door.

As Jubes and Kitty talked, I washed my face and took a good look at myself in the mirror. _"You don't have to be Jean, you just have to be Rogue."_ Be Rogue. Rogue was a seventeen-year-old girl, 5'8", a size 8, brown hair and eyes, originally from Mississippi, and a mutant who could absorb other's mutations and life forces. She has two best friends, a boyfriend and lives at a school for mutants. But was that _me_? Looking at my reflection, I knew that there had to be something more to me than that. But what?

I thought about it, but I couldn't come up with one thing. As I curled up under my bedcovers and murmured goodnight to Kitty and Jubilee, I realized something with a start: I don't know who I am. And that scares me more than any nightmare ever can.


	4. Losing Everything

_Losing Everything _

Dec 11

You know, the way they advertise Mexico at a travel agency, you would think it was a whirlwind of culture; flamenco dancers around every corner, spinning in time to a mariachi band as happy little kids offer you genuine Mexican cuisine, not the knockoff Taco Bell crap available at every corner in America. But in reality, once you reach the outskirts of Mexico City, it really just turns into desert landscape for miles. Most of the time it's just me out there on the road, stirring up dust on Cyke's motorcycle, headed nowhere in particular, just glad to be going.

At night, I either keep riding or I stop at a hotel. I wish I still had my trailer, that would've been perfect, but unfortunately, it was barbequed a couple years ago. I gotta admit though, the bike definitely looks badass.

Right now I'm about twenty miles outside of the city, and I'm having a hard time concentrating on much of anything. Last night, I had another one of those dreams again, bits and pieces of the lab, Stryker, and a lot of white coats and masks. I don't remember all of it, mostly just lots of green fluid and the pain. Even now, after God knows how many years, I can still feel those scalpels slicing into my skin, the searing, bone splitting pain of the liquid adamantium being injected into my body. It's the kind of pain that you can't even imagine unless you've experienced it firsthand; the kind where you're mercifully supposed to die, but you just can't. It's amazing to me that I can't remember anything that happened before then, but I can remember the pain of the experiment so vividly.

This time though, it was slightly different than the usual horrifying torture. I was on the outside looking in; I could see myself floating in the tank of green fluids, strapped to it and hooked up to different machines. There was an oxygen mask over my nose and mouth, and I was unconscious, knocked out by the drugs they were constantly injecting into my bloodstream.

The only problem with this brilliant plan of theirs is that if you heal like I do, drugs tend not to last as long. I could hear the scientists and doctors muttering in the background. I caught snippets of their conversation: "He'll wake up if we take him off it…five times the maximum dosage…"

"…adamantium won't graph if we don't let up…"

"…paralyzing agent instead?"

"…only a mutant…" There were murmurs of agreement. "…just a mutant…"

A white coat walked over towards an IV drip and switched the bag from a clear sedative to a pale amber color. After fifteen minutes, I saw myself beginning to stir. Suddenly, my eyes snapped open, and when they did, I was back in my body, watching the green tinted world. It took me a minute to process where I was, but once I figured it out, I began thrashing violently.

People began to cry out. I heard someone yell "Increase the dosage, damn it!", and I saw a lab assistant hook up another amber bag to my other arm. I saw someone with a mask pick up the scalpel, and I tried desperately to get free, but the straps held me tightly. I remember shaking my oxygen mask off, but no one bothered to put it back on. I couldn't breathe now; I felt myself getting lightheaded, but I knew I wouldn't pass out very quickly. Just as fast as I was killing brain cells, my healing factor was repairing them.

The man with the scalpel came closer and closer to me, and I realized that the paralyzing agent they gave me was starting to take effect. Everything below my neck was starting to lose movement; soon I couldn't lift my arm. I lay there, helpless, and the sheer terror I felt was written on my face.

It couldn't have been more than a few seconds of time from when that blade traveled from one side of the lab to my skin, but all of the sudden, (not to sound cliché) time had no meaning. I began hearing voices again, but this time they weren't doctors or scientists. I could hear Charles, barely more than a whisper, "We'll be waiting for you when you return."

"Hey Logan. Stay away from my girl," I heard Scott say, followed by him screaming, "She's not gone! Don't you say that! Don't!"

Various other voices—Storm, Jean, Bobby, Stryker, Mystique, Marie—they began talking all at once, each like a whisper on the wind: "At least I've chosen a side."

"Nothing personal, it's just, when someone touches my skin, something happens."

"Sometimes the mind has to discover things for itself."

"You make it sound as if I stole something from you. As I recall, it was you who volunteered for the procedure...You are just a failed experiment."

"Promise you'll come back? Just don't forget about me."

"It's not what I'd like it to be, but…it's just that it's not easy when you wanna be closer to someone."

"The good guy sticks around, Logan…Don't make me do this."

"What do you want? What do you really want?"

"You promised they couldn't hurt me…you promised…"

"What do you really want?" Mystique said that last one and it reverberated through my brain over and over again, getting louder till it was practically a siren in my ear. "What do you really want? What do you really want?"

Then the blade touched my cheek, and I began to scream in pain until I woke up, drenched in a cold sweat. The sheets were torn to shreds; I had cuts from where my claws had swung and missed. The guy from the room next door was banging on the wall and swearing at me in Spanish. I hollered back for him to fuck off, then climbed shakily out of bed and made my way to the bathroom.

Once inside, my knees buckled beneath me, and I promptly threw up the nachos and beer I had for dinner. For some reason, memories of perverse medical procedures don't really have a great effect on my stomach. Each time I thought about it, another wave of nausea hit me like a shot of Jack Daniels, and suddenly, up came breakfast.

About five minutes later, I finally had my stomach under some sort of control. I swished some water around in my mouth, spitting it out and rinsed off my face. Sighing, I flushed the toilet and leaned back against the wall. I felt shaky and wiped, like I had just run a marathon or something. I reached blindly over to the shower till I found the faucet, and cranked the handle as hot as it would go.

Once the room was filled with steam, I stripped down and stepped in, letting the scalding water scorch my skin, trying to sear away the feeling of the scalpels and needles. It hurt like hell, but I convinced myself that the pain was a good thing, the pain is what made me know I was still alive. I hadn't died in that lab at Alkali Lake. I was still alive, and probably would be for a long time yet.

Inside though, I still felt cut into a thousand pieces. My stomach was in knots, like someone had played cat's cradle with my insides, and my brain was torn between all the voices. "What do you really want?"

What do I want? I want my old life back. I want my past, my memories, everything that I lost. I want to know who the hell I am. I want everything I can't have and won't ever find, but I still keep looking. Sometimes I wonder why. I mean, it's not like I'm going to discover anything new. I've been searching for fifteen, maybe sixteen years now, prowling all of North America, and I've never found an answer.

But when I went to Alkali Lake with the Superteam to rescue the professor, I came closer to the truth than I ever have before. Stryker was the one man who could've told me everything. As I stood on that snowy hill, I was ready to drive my claws into his heart. I remember stabbing him once, and he screamed in agony. A part of me felt a sick sort of satisfaction. "How does it feel, bub?" I growled. The animal in me had taken over; I wanted him to experience the pain that he caused me.

"Why did you come back?" he gasped.

"You cut me open," I snarled as a buried my claws deeper into his side. "You took my life!"

His face was twisted in pain, but to my surprise he began to laugh. "You make it sound like I stole something from you," he struggled to say. I could tell that he was in serious pain. He gasped as I jerked my claws around inside him. I remember hoping that I sliced his liver in two. "As I recall, it was you who volunteered for the procedure."

For a moment, my rage subsided. Volunteered? Why would someone want to go through the hell that I did, that I'm still going through? Everyday I wake up and wonder if this is really who I am, or was I meant to be someone completely different?

"Who am I?" I asked, my voice low and threatening.

"You…" Stryker gasped for breath. Maybe I punctured his lung, I thought optimistically. "…are a failed experiment." Another claw went into his side, another cry of pain. "If you really knew about your past, what kind of person you were, the work we did together…"

Together? No, this was all wrong, I would never help this psychotic bastard with anything. He turned me into a science project; I went from a person to a specimen. I wasn't a human, I was a serial number. He tied me down and sliced me up like a taxidermist would, stuffing me full of a searing liquid, relying on my healing abilities to keep me alive. No, I wouldn't believe this, nothing could make me…

"People don't change, Wolverine," he told me, venom dripping from his words. "You were an animal then, you're an animal now. I just gave you claws."

Suddenly there was a crack; he told me that the dam was going to break, that it was trying to equalize the pressure. "It's too late. In a few minutes we'll all be under water. Come with me and I'll tell you everything you want to know."

Everything…

"You can't help your friends, they're as good as dead, Wolverine."

I could see them all now, Jean, Scott, Marie, Ororo, Charles, the kids, all being crushed under the tidal wave that would pour into the dam. They'd all die, we would never be able to escape from the dam in time, not with all the kids and Charles as dead weight. It was pointless to even try.

Everything…

"You're a survivor. Always have been."

I watched his cold blue eyes, staring at me, almost pleading. "I thought I was just an animal with claws," I whispered, each word coming from the deepest pool of hatred and rage that I possessed. This man was evil, he was a murderer, he didn't deserve to live. My claws slid out ever so slowly, inching toward his throat. I watched as he craned his neck away from me. I wanted to kill him, I wanted to feel the satisfaction of metal through his neck. I wanted him to die.

But I stopped. It was too fast, too good of a death for him. If he was going to die, then he was going to suffer. "If we die, you die," I said simply, and faster than he knew, I threw him to the ground and chained him to the helicopter. I may be a survivor, but I wasn't a coward. If I didn't go back there and try to help them, that guilt would ride on my shoulders for the rest of my life. Jean, Ororo, Scott, Charles, the kids, my Marie…especially Marie. I wouldn't let her die, not when there was a chance to save her. I had abandoned her once, I wasn't going to do it again.

As I was walking away, Stryker gave one last desperate attempt. "There are no answers that way, Wolverine!"

Everything…

I kept walking.

We did it. We escaped, at the cost of someone else's life. It was the heroic ending that everyone hopes to go out with, dying nobly, sacrificing your life for someone. Jean did it, she saved us all. And I still feel guilty, although the only thing I could've done was physically forced her back on the jet, but she wouldn't have let me.

Stryker died. He drowned in the lake, chained to that slab of concrete. I assume that Magneto put him there, but I don't know for sure, and I probably never will. His last words to me were: "Who has the answers, Wolverine? Those people? That creature in your arms?"

I threw my dogtags at him, and at that moment I swore I wasn't going to look anymore. It wasn't worth people getting hurt over, and this man was a bastard, I didn't want to remember him. I was through with it.

And now, here I am back on my search for who I am. As much as I hate to admit it, I sometimes have second thoughts about killing Stryker. He was the one man in the world who could've told me the truth, and I let him die. I was offered the world on a silver platter, and I spat on it and threw it into oblivion. And what for? A handful of ideals and virtues that this newly formed conscience of mine has? I had everything, all the answers, no more searching, no more questions…

The only person who knows my fucked up thoughts is Marie. I wouldn't tell Scott, he's already screwed up. He's had therapy sessions with Charles, and he's been taking antidepressants for three or four months now. And he and I have never had that great a relationship anyway. I wouldn't tell Professor X; I don't want to be psychoanalyzed and my mind read like an open book. Besides, he'd just tell me what he always does: "You will understand when your ready, Logan." Bullshit.

I didn't even want to tell Marie, but one night she happened to wander in on me sitting outside, smoking a cigar. She did that a lot when I was at the mansion, always wandering aimlessly and happening to find me somewhere. It was a beautiful night; late September and the leaves were just beginning to blaze with color. The stars and moon shone fiercely in the cloudless sky, and a gentle breeze drifted over the grounds of the school. I caught Marie's scent on the breeze, and closing my eyes, I savored it just for a moment. Vanilla sugar body wash, a gentle splash of a soft floral perfume, and that indescribable scent of her.

"Hey Logan," she said softly. "You okay?"

I couldn't help but smile at her. Her Mississippi accent was coming out again, though she did her best to hide it here. She was always trying her best to fit in, but it's hard to fit into a puzzle when you can't touch the other pieces. "Yeah, kid, I'm good. Just thinking."

"What about?" she asked me, sliding over and taking a seat on the grass at my feet.

"Nothing important."

But I could tell from the look on her face that she didn't buy it. I knew she wouldn't, she's too smart for that. "Come on Logan," she said, plucking a blade of grass and twirling it absently between her fingers. "I know something's bothering you."

I didn't say anything right away. I took another drag on my cigar and blew the sweet scented smoke into the air. I wasn't sure if I wanted to tell her everything that had been running through my head, especially since it didn't exactly have the best intentions.

But something about the way she looked at me with those concerned brown eyes of hers made me want to tell her the truth. And slowly, I told her the whole story of what Stryker and I had said at Alkali Lake, how I had sworn to stop searching for my past, but his words haunted me. "He promised to tell me everything," I told her. "And I killed him. And now I'm wondering, maybe I missed my one chance to know the truth, who I am."

She was silent for a moment, and I suddenly realized that maybe that wasn't at all what she was expecting. I shouldn't have told her, but before I could start beating myself up about it, she said, "I think that it's still out there. You just have to give it some time and who knows, maybe it will come to you when you least expect it."

"Wait for me to find me?" I asked with a half smile. "Thanks kid, but I've been waiting around for fifteen years. I think I lost me for good a long time ago."

"Well if that's true, then why do you keep looking?" she asked, her eyes darting my way.

I didn't have an answer. Noting my silence, she smiled and laid back on the grass, satisfied.

"You smug little…" I muttered under my breath.

She grinned. "You're just mad because you know I'm right," she said.

"You better be careful, kid," I cautioned, taking another drag on my cigar.

She laughed, and I couldn't help smiling again. Her laugh was beautiful, and it was nice to hear it again after so many months of depression around the school. "I'm not afraid of the big, bad Wolverine," she told me. "Besides, I already know you who are."

I looked at her with a question in my eyes.

She nodded, and rolled over on her side, leaning on her elbow. "You're still up here, remember?" She tapped her temple with her forefinger. "I know who you are. You're Logan. You're a lot more complex than you let on. There's more to you than claws and a temper, and you know it." She climbed up from the ground. "But don't worry," she said as she brushed off her jeans. "I won't tell anyone. Wouldn't want people to think the mighty Wolverine has a conscience and shit."

"Watch your mouth, kid," I said, almost automatically. She may be seventeen, but she was still a kid in my eyes. Kids don't swear; my Marie was still young, still innocent.

She stopped for just a moment and studied me, calculating me with those big brown eyes of her. Something seemed to change in those eyes, something was different. "I'll see you in the morning, Logan," she told me gently, but abruptly. Then she turned and walked away, leaving me alone again, and very confused.

Suddenly I realized what had made her look so different: there were tears standing in her eyes. Moreover, she looked defeated, as if she had just given up hope, although of what, I had no idea. The next morning though, it was as though we had never spoken earlier. She was the same bright, cheerful Marie that I know so well. _That _was my Marie, my sweet, innocent, complete opposite of me Marie. We never talked about that night again.

Once I had used all the hot water, I climbed out of the shower and dried off. I was tired and ready to go back to bed, but as I pulled on my boxers, I knew that if I didn't write all this down, I wouldn't be able to sleep. So that's what I've been doing for the past hour, dumb shit that I am, but instead of feeling better, I just feel worse. I know what I want, but the truth keeps glaring at me like a bright light: I'll never get it. And Marie's optimism, for all her good intentions, didn't do a damn thing. In fact, I think it might have made my depression worse.

As much as I hate to admit it though, I think that Marie was right in one aspect. I am Logan, but there's more to me than claws. But the problem is that I don't know _what_ that more is, and if I hadn't killed Stryker, I would know. I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't, did or didn't.

God, what I wouldn't give to see Marie's face now. I don't know why, but ever since I left, she keeps creeping into my thoughts at the weirdest times. I could definitely use her smile, her idealism, her scent on the wind… But all I smell now is dirty clothes, a moldy, shitty motel room, and the dry dust of Mexico. And I all want is a beer to numb the pain.


	5. Burning, Bloody Truth

_Burning, Bloody Truth _

December 14

Only one week till final exams. You can practically feel the stress vibrating in the air around here; everyone in the high school classes is having near panic attacks, trying to get memorize the quadratic formula, complete works of Edgar Allen Poe, the gas laws, and the Peloponnesian Wars all at the same time. The lounges and rec rooms have gone from places to hang out to study halls, and the professor's library is missing about half of it's books from the seniors trying to finish term papers.

I've got six classes to study for, and my brain is ready to explode. I swear, when I learn all the material once I understand it, but when I try to remember it—whoosh!—out the window it goes. I'm most worried about my calculus and physics finals. See, with English and history courses, all you have to do is memorize the facts. Napoleon's navy was destroyed by the British commander Horatio Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar, and no matter what, that is what it will always be.

But with math and science, you learn how to work a problem with one set of numbers, but on the exam it's a whole new set. You never know if you are one hundred percent correct. It's like saying that if train A is leaving Austin going to New Orleans at 50mph, and train B is leaving Baltimore and going to Cleveland at 40mph, which one will arrive first? Well I know how to work the problem with those numbers, but on the test, train A could be going 45mph and train B could be going 60mph. So now what?

When we learned this in class, I told Mr. Summers that all you really have to do is just check the ETA schedules at the station.

"But what if the schedules are off? What if the trains are running late?" he asked me.

"By the time I do all this math and come to the right answer, my train has probably already left the station," I responded. "And then I'm really screwed." The rest of my class thought it was hilarious, but Mr. Summers held me back after class and told me to watch what I say. I told him I was sorry; I really didn't mean to be disrespectful, I was just speaking my mind.

He nodded and rubbed his temples. He had another headache; he has been getting them a lot since Jean died. Ever since we came back from Alkali Lake, Scott's looked tired, worn out. He's even got a few gray hairs, and I know he takes antidepressants and goes to therapy sessions with the professor. I feel really bad for the guy, even if he is my teacher. His class used to be a lot of fun, always hyped up with energy. He was always so into the whole teaching thing, molding our young minds. Or, as he used to call it, "Brainwashing us and twisting our thoughts to coincide with his devious plots."

Now though, his lectures remind me of the teachers' I used to have back in Mississippi. It's the one class I feel like I'm going to fall asleep in, the way it drags on. Everyone understands the material, but the old fire that used to spice up his lessons is gone.

Everyone's so tired and stressed out, I am counting down the days until winter break. Some of the kids go home for the holidays, the ones whose parents know they're mutants and sent their kids here so they'd be safe. Others stay here and make due with the weird family we've got. Not everyone celebrates Christmas, so to be fair, the professor doesn't make a big deal out of any one holiday, but he doesn't forget them either. Menorahs, Christmas trees, and Kwanzaa candles are all set out in the library, where everyone can see the snow falling out over the grounds and curl up next to the huge brick fireplace with hot cocoa.

This year, there aren't too many people staying here over break. I am, obviously, and so is Jubes. She and I are in the same boat as our families are concerned: a nonexistent one. Kitty was one of the lucky ones, her parents are total liberals. When they found out that Kitty was a mutant, they sent her here because they were worried about her safety at her regular school. So she's going home, and Colossus is going with her. Bobby is staying here after the whole fiasco at his house this summer, and I don't blame him. I wouldn't want to go home either, not after my little brother called the cops on me. Some of the younger kids are staying too, maybe six or so.

Today after classes, Kitty and I drove to the mall to go shopping for Christmas gifts. Ms. Monroe was nice enough to let us borrow one of the school's SUV's, and so we plowed our way through foot deep drifts of snow. I let Kitty handle the driving; being from Chicago, she was used to this kind of weather, but in Mississippi, flurries were cause to call the National Guard. (Actually happened once too, but that time we really did have an all out blizzard. School was canceled for a week straight. That was the best week of first grade I ever had.)

Have I ever mentioned how beautiful the snow is up here? There are at least two feet drifts up against the sides of the school, and all the pine trees are decked out in pure white mantles. I love winter up here, with it's near below zero temperatures and snowball fights and foot long icicles. See, when winter comes around, everyone looks just like me, all covered up from head to toe in fabric; everyone wears gloves and scarves. I don't have to worry about looking out of place, because everyone looks just like me. Maybe I can talk the professor into relocating the mansion to Iceland…

Once we got to the mall, Kitty and I split up to go look for gifts for our "Secret Santa." I had Jubilee, and I immediately set off to Rave to check out that hot, white leather mini that she had been eyeing for the past month. I found it immediately, a skirt that I would never be able to pull off in a million years. It had zippers that went all the way up the sides and silver chains that slung across the front like punk lace. Pulling a size four of the rack, I sighed and draped it over my arm. Jubes has a rocking body, and it drive me crazy to no end. She is the only girl I know who can eat a Quarter Pounder with SuperSize fries and lose three pounds the next morning. Jealous? Me? Damn straight!

I wove my way through a forest of clothes racks to the clearance shelf. Digging through it, I found a yellow and purple halter top that wound around a body and tied in a knot over one hip. At least, I think that was what it was supposed to do; it was so flimsy and small that it really just looked like a tie-dyed rag at first glance. Actually that's how most of Jubes clothes look on the floor of our room, but on her, they look custom made.

I snagged a set of silver hoop earrings from the jewelry counter and made my way to the cashier. As I waited in the typical Friday evening crown of people, I bobbed my head unconsciously to the techno version of "Jingle Bells" that blasted too loud from the speakers.

And that's when I saw him. Just outside the store, standing next to a potted plant, was Logan. I gasped and nearly dropped my armful of clothes. He'd been gone for a month, and I had missed him so much, and now, here he was, back again. My heart was racing, my mouth was dry as I stared like an idiot, to dumbfounded to move.

Slowly, he turned my way. He looked straight at me…and I realized it wasn't him. He was the same height, same build, and he had the same hair, but his eyes weren't Logan's quick, feral, compassionate eyes that I had grown to know so well over the years. This guy's eyes were a cold, steely gray, the color of a storm cloud, and he looked at me with a smirk on his face. He winked and licked his lips as he ran scanned my body up and down like a piece of meat, and I suddenly felt violated. I pulled my parka around my chest, even though it was already too hot in the store, but he was already distracted as a girl walked out of the restrooms and wove her wiry arm around his waist.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as he pulled her close, and they proceeded to make out right there in the middle of the mall, tongue and all. The kiss had to have lasted for at least thirty seconds before he finally released her. Together, the two of them walked away, his hand slid down the back pocket of her too tight jeans.

I wonder what it's like to be kissed like that, to be really kissed. It's sad really; I'm seventeen years old and have yet to have a real kiss from a guy that I was in love with. I kissed Bobby once, and that didn't turn out so well, and then there was that guy in Mississippi…I don't even want to remember that day. The worst part is, once I find that guy, that one special guy (all you romantics out there know what I'm talking about) I won't be able to kiss him, or even hold his hand, or snuggle up next to him, or other less innocent things that teens fantasize about.

"Miss? Excuse me, are you going to purchase those?" I turned around and realized that the cashier was talking to me, and all the people behind me were starting to get impatient. My face turned the color of a stop sign as I quickly tossed the clothes on the counter. The girl behind the counter rang them up, and I walked out of the store with a black and pink bag and $55.78 less than I went in with.

I wasn't supposed to meet Kitty for another half an hour, and so I wandered aimlessly around the second floor till I came upon Starbucks. As I sat down in at a corner table, I mentally kicked myself for the way I behaved at Rave. I mean, honestly, I am seventeen for God's sake. I'm not stupid enough to have a crush on anyone, least of all Logan. "I _don't _have a crush on him," I told myself quietly, forcing myself to listen.

And besides, even if I did, I know as well as anybody that Logan never stays around for anyone. Even Jean, he left her behind, and everyone else here at the institute. "Even me," I whispered, stirring the whipped cream into my mocha latte. I watched the soft mounds of white fluff as they melted into a gentle vortex, spiraling into the coffee confection. When he left a month ago, for wherever the hell he was going, the anger I felt…no, I don't want to think about that right now…

I still remember what he promised me two years ago, back when I was young and stupid and running from everyone. He promised that he'd look out for me, that we would get through this whole messy world together. When he touched me on top of the Statue of Liberty, he knew that he could have died. He was willing to sacrifice his life for me.

And where is he now? _Hell if I know_, I thought bitterly, sipping my coffee. Not here, and that was what hurt me the most. The same old question always comes to my mind: does he care about me anymore? I'm scared to ask him, I'm afraid of the answer. But in my heart, I know the truth. If you care about someone, don't you stick around, don't you want to be with them? You want to be there to protect them, and to make sure that no harm will come their way.

I can deny it all I want, but the fact is, Logan has never stayed more than a month or so at the institute. Even then, he was always leaving at odd times, coming back hours later, sometimes drunk, sometimes hung over, and still other times sober as hell, but it was like he was a robot. Those were the worst times. I would talk to him, try to get him to open up, tell me what was wrong. Every time though, he would shake his head and tell me, "You wouldn't understand, kid. Don't worry about it."

_Kid_…God how I hated that word. What had started out almost as a term of endearment had become an excuse to get me to shut up and stop badgering him. I wasn't a little girl anymore, but let's face it, Logan's practically immortal. God only knows how old he is, and seventeen must seem like an infant to him. But why couldn't he see that I wasn't a child? I'm practically a woman, and I have always been more mature than any other teens my age.

No, I'm just "kid." Just a child, nothing more in his eyes than a child. Little, baby Marie, sweet, innocent Marie…the coffee burned my throat as I swallowed too much. My eyes watered, and I began to cough uncontrollably. I covered my mouth with a napkin and breathed slowly in through my nose as I swallowed, trying to sooth my now sandpaper throat.

I looked at my coffee cup disdainfully, as if I could blame it for my own stupidity. But I couldn't even do that, I realized, reading the fine print at the seam of the cup. _"Caution: Contents may be hot. Handle with care."_

I gave a scornful laugh. _No shit_, I thought. "The truth burns," I murmured to myself as I picked up my barely drank coffee and tossed it in the trash on my way out, "in more ways than one."

˜™

Dec 17

I swear to God, Marie is haunting me. I see her in my dreams, nearly every night. Sometimes she speaks, sometimes she screams and curses at me, and other times she just stares at me with those huge brown eyes of hers, doe eyes. Defeated eyes, eyes that mask a bruised and bleeding heart.

She was there tonight, watching me. She stood in the middle of an endless white room. She was dressed in a pure white gown, clean as mountain snow. Her long brown hair was perfect, shining waves that rippled down her back. The two white streaks in front blew gently from an unknown wind, twisting softly in front of her face. She was beautiful, a vision too miraculous for human eyes.

I walked towards her, and she watched me, eyes unblinking. Her face showed no expression, but her soft, defeated eyes followed my approach. I was stunned, and I reached out a shaky hand to touch her porcelain cheek, round and tinged with the faintest blush. She was an angel, a striking beauty, silent and sad. Her cheek was soft as silk, and I cupped her face in both my hands, feeling the smoothness of her skin.

Brushing the hair out of her face, I looked into her eyes. I could see my reflection in a sea of brown, my mussed hair flying everywhere, a five o'clock shadow dusting my chin and cheeks. My face was a picture of wonder and astonishment, my mouth agape and my eyes huge.

Her gloveless hands reached up and grasped mine, and she held them tightly. It felt like she was holding on for her life, but angels don't die, they can't. This angel, this beautifully sad angel was holding me as if I was all she had left. Slowly, she rose up on her toes and kissed me softly on the lips. Her own were like brushing up against a rose petal, so soft and fragile.

When she stepped back, to my horror, I saw that she was crying. These were no ordinary tears, there were red, blood tears that pooled in her eyes. One escaped and fell down her cheek. I quickly tried to wipe away this blemish from her perfect face with my thumb, but I only succeeded in smearing it across her skin.

I could feel her knees buckling beneath her, her hands lost their firm grasp on mine. She sank slowly to the ground, her eyes, her bleeding, tearful eyes never losing sight of me. She fell to the ground and sat crying silent blood tears that stained her face and her pure white dress as they dripped onto it. The shining crimson was a severe contrast with the soft delicate white of everything else.

I wanted to bend down and hold her, comfort her like I had so many times in the past. I wanted her to stop crying these evil tears, these bloody drops that were ruining the pure, innocent world she was in. But I couldn't. Something inside me was cautioning me, telling me not to get too close. It was one of those instincts that I was born with, along with so many others, and I have never gone against my instincts. So why did I want to now?

But I didn't. I watched her as she stared up at me with her broken spirit, her blood tears falling down to the ground. The drops on the ground began to flow outward, creating tiny rivers of blood, looking like veins, branching one from the other. Slowly but surely, they spread farther and farther out, till they were beyond sight. The floor was a mess of blood rivulets, and still they poured from her eyes anew.

I look down at her, dumbstruck in horror, and she opened her mouth to speak. "Logan," she whispered, yet I could here her voice as if she were shouting. Her southern accent was warm and slow as honey, and each intonation rang like a church bell. "I love…"

She stopped, unable to go on. Her eyes pleaded with me, her defeated eyes that begged to be saved. But I couldn't. I watched her, and she finally hung her head in the ultimate surrender, and she faded slowly, like a lens going in and out of focus. I wanted to scream, come back. I wanted to dry her tears. I wanted to tell her that I…no, I won't tell her, I won't. Because I don't. Because she deserves better, because I don't. I said nothing, I did nothing. Soon she was gone all together, and I realized that I was alone in this bloody room.

I looked around. Her tears were all around me. I crouched down slowly and cautiously lowered my finger into the web of blood. It stopped for just a moment, dammed behind my fingertip, pooling and swelling behind it. Then spilled out around the sides and continued on their course. My finger was covered with the angel, my angel, my Marie's blood. I closed my eyes as I felt the tears coming on, I refused to contaminate her tears with my own.

Why didn't I save her? Why didn't I help her? I couldn't, a voice in my head told me, I wouldn't. I couldn't, for her sake I couldn't.

I woke up. The dream, the horrible heart wrenching nightmare left me feeling guiltier than I had ever felt in my life. I jumped out of the bed, threw on some clothes and ran across the street to the nearest bar. I entered it, my loud, smoky, drunken haven from the world, and from my mind. I threw down some money, bought a beer, and drank it all in nearly one swig. I bought two more and drank them just as fast but my mind was still racing, my heart pounding deep in my chest.

"_Logan, I love…"_ She taunted me, she mocked me, she pleaded, begged, implored me, all with those three little words. A million different emotions were stirred up inside me, emotions that scared the shit out of me.

"Whisky," I growled after my third bottle, tossing it at the short bartender.

The poor guy was scared out of his mind as he watched this American chug beers like there was no tomorrow. "Sorry, only beer," he stammered, his English hardly recognizable with his heavy accent. "No have whisky, no have, sorry."

I spun around without a word and made my way out the door and back across the street to the motel. Grabbing my bike, I revved the engine and gunned out of the parking lot. I rode for miles until I found another bar, more like La Estrella Negra. Inside, it was loud and I could see a cage match taking place in the center, people screaming at the two guys slugging it out.

I shoved my way to the bar and demanded two shots of Jack Daniels. I downed them both in three seconds flat. I was feeling the buzz now, everything became surreal. I was there, but at the same time I wasn't. Another shot, and all I could see was Marie's eyes now, her crying eyes. Escape, I needed to escape her…

Without even realizing it, I got up and shoved my way through the noisy drunken crowd towards the cage match. A shirtless man with huge arm muscles and a tattoo of the Virgin Mary on his chest stood in the center, pummeling a skinny punk to a pulp. The kid's back was ripped and bleeding, and I realized that the wire mesh of the cage was interwoven with barbed wire.

Eventually the kid fell to the ground and didn't get up again. Everyone in the crowd cheered and screamed wildly as the winner raised his arms in victory. He gave the loser one more kick in the stomach for good measure, and then three guys jumped in and hauled the bruised and bleeding man out of the cage.

A voice came on over the loud speaker, speaking in fast Spanish. The crowd cheered for the winner, and he laughed and slammed his rock hard body into the cage purposely, letting the barbed wire pierce his skin. He took a beer that someone handed him, chugged it, and then threw the empty bottle against the mesh. The glass shattered on impact and rained down on the onlookers standing below. The man stood for a few more seconds in the ring, but it seemed like no one was going to take him on.

Escape. I felt myself pushing my way towards the gate, watched my fingers as they stole a protesting man's bottle of hard liquor. I ripped the door open. Stepping in, I heard a mixture of cheering and booing as the huge Mexican laughed when he saw me. He was the same size as me, but he was heavier. I took a swig of the liquor, not caring what it was or whose for that matter.

The man said something to me in Spanish and the rest of the crowd cheered and laughed. I figured he had insulted me, but by this point, I was too crazed to care. "Let's go, you bastard," I muttered, widening my stance.

He laughed again, then turned and ran like a bull straight towards me. I waited, then ducked at the last minute. The crowd roared as he ran past me. He was ready though, and pivoted quickly, just missing the barbed wire. He turned and faced me again, his face red and angry. I had humiliated him in front of his fans. I didn't give a damn.

Her eyes were watching me, I could still see them in my mind. _Stop watching me, stop following me, nothing I can do…escape_. I took another drink of the stuff in my hand; it burned my throat and the pit of my stomach. I threw the half-full bottle at him. It hit him on the chest and shattered on the ground in front of us.

He charged again, but my reaction time was slower due to the alcohol. He pushed me up against the cage wall. The barbed wire cut up into my skin; I cried out, more in surprise than in pain. He smiled grimly, pulled me off, then slammed me into it again. I gritted my teeth, feeling the spikes gouge into my flesh. He punched me in the gut; the bloodthirsty crowd cheered. He hit me again in the stomach, then once below the belt.

I fell, doubled over in pain. The mother fucker fought dirty, that was for sure. He turned to the audience and yelled something to them. They roared back in response, chanting his name, although I didn't hear it. He turned and swung his arm down, lifting me by the collar of my shredded shirt. "Buenos noches, señor," he whispered.

That did it. The alcohol, the nightmares, the low blow, the mocking tone, it all came together. I snapped. The animal side in me took over, I wasn't Logan anymore, I was the Wolverine. I slammed my head into his as hard as I could. My adamantium covered skull rocked his, and he dropped me and stumbled backwards. He had a gash on his forehead from where I hit him.

I stood up and ripped off my torn shirt. The crowd gasped for a moment; the cuts on my back must have healed. He recovered and charged me. This time I took it head on, slamming my booted foot into the soft spot of the stomach. He doubled over, and I took his face and smashed it into my knee with the force of a freight train. He fell onto the glass shards from the bottle and rolled over them in pain, oblivious. His nose was shattered and bleeding, and I had knocked out some of his teeth.

_Don't watch me,_ I thought bitterly. _You won't like what you see_. I knelt on his sternum and began to pummel his face with my fists, my adamantium-knuckled fists. My claws were seconds from coming out and slicing his face like a pizza. He struggled underneath me; blindly he grasped a large piece of broken glass and stabbed me in the leg with it. I roared like a wild animal. He threw me off of him and scrambled up.

I tore the glass from my leg and felt it heal back together, the muscles and tendons and skin knitting back together. The Mexican was stumbling towards the gate, unable to see where he was going, his face was nothing but blood. He didn't care if he won now, he just wanted to get out alive. Like hell he was.

I grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. His black, beady eyes were fearful and pleading…just like Marie's. "Stop watching me!" I roared. My fist slammed into his right temple, and he fell like a stone. This time, he didn't get up. Two men rushed in and lifted him out of the ring. Blood poured from his face. The Virgin Mary on his chest was stained with blood, and his blood covered my hands and was spattered all over my naked chest and face.

Was he alive? Dead? I didn't know, I didn't care. I stared at the bloodstains on my hands, the blood of the Mexican, my blood, Marie's blood, the angel blood, it was all there, the same burning, crimson liquid that seemed to sear my hands and chest. The alcohol rushed through my system, the adrenaline, and the animalistic rage coursed through me, pulsing through at one hundred miles per hour. _I hit her,_ I thought numbly. _I saw her eyes, I saw her, and I killed her._

I turned and ran, pushing my way out of the crowds and out of the bar, into the night. I grabbed my bike and drove down the highway, going as fast as could, my bare chest taking a beating from cold night wind. I didn't stop till I ran out of gas, then I sat by the edge of the abandoned road, leaning against the useless motorcycle, my head in my bloodstained hands.

"I killed her," I whispered. "I saw her eyes, her beautiful, goddamn eyes, and I killed her." The guilt tore through me, because I knew that no matter where I went on earth now, I will never be able to outrun the bloody truth. It was there, burning itself onto my hands and my soul as the sun rose up over the eastern horizon.


	6. What I Wanted To Say

_What I Wanted to Say_

December 19

It's Sunday night. Two more days till exams. Kitty and Colossus are leaving for her house right after their last test, and then it will just be Bobby, Jubilee, and I here, relaxing and sleeping in late and eating as many candy canes as humanly possible. We've been studying all day, quizzing each other on Avagadro's Theory and Poe's _The Raven_. The five of us are trying to burn off some of the pressure for finals by watching Adam Sandler movies in the rec room, but I can't pay attention. You can only see _Mr. Deeds_ so many times before you start to lose interest. Even the scene where the butler tries to impale Sandler's foot with a fire poker is starting to get old.

God, I hate finals. I am so tired, I think I could pass out right here in the arm chair. I can barely keep my eyes open. Maybe I should get up and go make some coffee, but I don't even want to m­—

When I was writing earlier, I did fall asleep in my chair, my notebook tumbling down onto the floor. Now I don't know whether it was stress or too much pressure on my brain or if it was something else entirely, something rooted deeper in my mind, but all I know is that if I ever see it, this nightmare, again, I might just kill myself.

I was standing outside of my house, my home back in Mississippi. It was just as I had left it almost three years ago, the same two story, blue paneled house, with the front porch's peeling white paint, and the wire mesh of the screen door torn at the bottom right hand corner. The old tire swing my dad helped me make when I was twelve still hung suspended from the old, knarled oak tree that had been there for years. My dad's old red pickup sat in the gravel driveway. He always refused to buy a new one. "Nothing like my ol' Ford," he would say, thumping her on the hood. "She's as good as the day I bought her."

I walked up to the old porch steps, almost cautiously, as if they might crumble underneath my feet. This was so real, everything was exactly how it was when I left, right down to the neighbor's black lab pulling at his chain. I approached the door, but hesitated as my hand hovered over the knob. I had opened this door thousands of times before, but now it felt as if I were intruding. _Should I knock?_, I thought. On the one hand, I hadn't been here in three years. But still, it was my home…

I turned the knob and stepped inside, shutting the door quietly behind me. Instantly I smelled the warm, sun kissed scent of lavender, my mom's personal favorite. There were dried flower bouquets on the walls and the tables, as well as little figurines of sheppards and Precious Moments knockoff on the shelves in the hallway, just like always. And of course, pictures were everywhere. My mom was a sucker for old memories and sentimentality. The house was a veritable walk-in scrapbook.

At the far end of the hall, I heard the soft notes of an old country song coming from the kitchen, as well as the enticing scent of baked apples laced with cinnamon. I crept down the hallway, stepping over the two creaky floorboards instinctively. Years of late night cookie binges had taught me well. Peering around the corner, I saw my mother's profile. She was humming softly to the song as she rolled out the apple pie crust. She had a few more gray hairs than before, and a few more wrinkles, but she still had the same cheerful smile and dexterous hands that could roll pie crusts with as much fluidity as playing Mozart on the piano.

"Mama?" I whispered, my voice cracking with emotion. Despite all the reasons that I ran, all the hurtful things she might have said to me, I knew that she was still my mother. I still loved her with all my heart, and I knew she would love me. "Mama?" I said again, my voice stronger this time.

She stopped humming and turned. Her brown eyes, I got her brown eyes, they stared at me for a moment, then opened wide in wonder. "I beg your pardon? Who are you? How did you get in here?"

Who was I? Had I changed that much in just three short years? "Mama," I said, stepping towards her. "Mama, it's me. It's Ro—Marie."

She hesitated, then stepped back away from me, pressing her back against the counter. "I don't know who you are, young lady, but you need to leave my house immediately."

No, no this wasn't right. "Mama, I know I'm a bit different, but it's still me, it's still Marie," I explained, walking towards her. "I'm your daughter, Mama, you know that."

Now her eyes were fearful, and she stepped quickly to the right, towards the cordless phone on the counter. "Leave now, or I will call the cops," she said, her voice quavering.

"No!" I shouted. "Mama, you have to know me," I pleaded, approaching her again. "You have to know your own daughter. I'm Marie, you know that!"

Her hand fumbled on the counter, trying to grab the phone and keep her eyes on me at the same time. "Harry!" she screamed, her voice shrill. "Harry, help!"

Harry was my father. Sure enough, he came running from the basement. "What's the matter?" he asked as he surveyed the room. "Who's this?" he asked pointing at me.

My heart broke in two. "Daddy," I whispered, feeling the tears well up. "Daddy you have to know me. Please, tell Mama who I am, she says she doesn't know, but that's impossible, I—"

"'Daddy'?" he asked. He looked confused. "I'm sorry, miss, but I don't know who you are, and I am certainly not your father."

"Harry, she broke into our house!" my mom screamed. "She just walked in here and she won't leave!"

Instantly, my father went into protective patriarch mode. "Is this true?" he asked. He began to move towards his wife, my mother, sheltering her from my sight.

"No!" I tried to explain. "Well, yes—but, I live here! Or I used to, before I ran away, but I still love you and this is still my home and for God's sake, you have to know who I am, Daddy!" I screamed.

"Young lady," His voice was stern, like it used to be when I got in trouble. We do not know who you are, we are certainly not your parents, and I suggest you leave now, before I call the cops and bring the law against you."

The tears fell. "No…no…" I begged, crying, my voice incredulous. I wouldn't believe them, I couldn't. This was all some sick joke, something that we would all look back on later and laugh about.

I implored my mother again. "Please, Mama, please remember. You and I, we used to make white chocolate chip-macadamia nut cookies together every Monday after school. You French braided my hair every day in third grade. You used to tell me stories about when you and Daddy met, how he swept you off your feet."

"I'm calling the police," she said in response, finally having found the phone.

"Mama, no please!" I entreated her. "Please, please remember me, remember Marie, please!"

"Get out of this house!" my father yelled, his voice shaking the rafters.

I stood there for just a moment, staring at them. How could they forget me? I was their daughter, for Christ's sake! She gave birth to me, he taught me how to ride a two-wheeler. He gave me my first driving lesson in his old beat up Ford, and she stayed up till one in the morning listening to me talk about a boy I had a crush on.

They had always been there for me, until they found out I was a mutant, but even then, it was a fear of what they didn't understand. Even though I knew that I would run and never come back, I had always hoped that one day I would come back, and they would see that I was still Marie. I was still their baby girl. That day had come, but with one unfathomable, implausible flaw: they had forgotten all about me.

"Oh God, please, don't do this to me," I whispered, tears falling like rain.

"Get…out," my father growled, his voice low and threatening.

No, no, I wasn't gone, I was still here! I wanted to scream it from the rafters; I was their child! I was their only daughter, damn it! I saw myself running towards my mother, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her till she remembered.

Instead I turned and ran into the hallway. _The pictures,_ I thought desperately. _I have to be in the pictures!_ I grabbed the nearest frame; it was one of my cousins from North Carolina. I threw it down and snatched another one. This one I recognized. It was me on my way to an eighth grade dance. Or at least, that is what it was supposed to be. Where I was, my head was cut out, a perfect oval. Turning around, I realized that all the photos of me, those hanging on the walls and those sitting placidly on the table, had the heads cut out of them.

I screamed and swung my black-gloved fist at them. They crashed to the ground, and I began to pick them up and hurl them at the wall. The combination of glass, metal, plastic, and wood shattered in the narrow hall, and I didn't stop, not even when my father came in and tried to restrain me, roughly wrapping his strong arms around me and tearing me from my destruction of his home, _my_ home! My mom screaming and crying, her hands wringing her apron. She screamed, "Harry, Harry!" over and over again, a deafening din in my ears, mocking me.

I wriggled and twisted, elbowing and kicking him until I was free. Before he could grab me again, I ran up the stairs two at a time. Catching site of my old bedroom door at the end of the hall, I sprinted, my father close on my heels. I lunged flew into the room, slamming the door shut and twisted the lock as he collided with it. I felt the vibrations as he smashed against it, heard him shouting for my mother to call the cops and swearing at me, "Open the goddamn door!"

My lungs were burning. Air was coming in short, fast gasps as I tried to breathe, but I was sobbing at the same time. The result of the two was a hacking cough that rocked my body. Shutting my eyes against the pain, both physical and emotional, I turned and leaned back against the door, letting gravity pull me down. I rested my head between my knees and cried till not a drop was left in my body.

Eventually the pounding ceased, and it was just me, alone, just like always.

"They hate me," I whispered. "They erased me from their lives, they erased me from their thoughts!" Was I ever there? Was there ever a time when I lived there, in that house at the edge of Glenbrook, Mississippi, the daughter of Harry and Janice? Was I ever there, in their thoughts, after I left? No, never. They wiped me away like a layer of dust off of a bookshelf, a stain on their lives, easily gotten rid of. "Fuck them," I whispered angrily, but I knew I didn't mean it. I knew that, by "fuck them", what I really wanted to say was "Mommy, Daddy, I love you." And have them say it back.

"Marie?"

I jumped. Someone was in this room with me. For the first time I looked up and saw where I was, and it wasn't my bedroom. I was in a pure white room, endless and almost sterile looking. And there in the middle was Logan, staring at me wide-eyed. He had never seen me this way before, broken down into a huddling mass of flesh, my hair tangled and hiding my face like a shield.

Slowly I stood up and walked towards him. He continued to stare at me, like a freak in a circus sideshow. And that was how I felt, a sideshow freak. Come and see the amazing Rogue! She kills with a touch, watch her as she tears apart people's lives, ruining families, hurting those she loves most!

"Why?" I thought aloud as I walked towards him. "Why can't I touch myself, kill myself, instead of everyone else? Why can't I be close to everyone but myself? Why can't I be close to you, Logan? Why won't you let me be close to you?"

He didn't answer. He stared. _Christ, Logan, stop staring! Stop looking at me like the freak I am!_ _Stop it!_

I began to cry again, but this time the tears were bloody. I had cried all the tears out already, the only thing left was blood. Slowly it occurred to me that if I got rid of the blood, then I wouldn't live. I wouldn't hurt anyone anymore, no more pain, no more crying, blood or water.

Logan, he had knives, blades that I could slice myself open with, get rid of the blood, the life. I reached out for him, but he stepped back, appalled by my existence. "Logan, please," I begged. "Don't leave me, too. Don't let me live." My thoughts were a huge, dark, twisted mess, a huge ball of twisted strings, tangled spiderweb, ensnaring me in its trap. Did I want to kill myself? Did I want Logan? Did I want Logan to kill for me? Death, pain, anger, confusion, all mixed with another emotion, something hot and pulsing, unfamiliar, yet at the very core of the web, it began to burn inside me, penetrating through the sticky strings.

"Logan," I whispered. "Logan… I love…"

Before I could finish though, he turned his back on me, and began to walk away. I called his name, once, twice, but he couldn't hear me, or chose not to. Soon he was gone, and I fell to the floor, crying those blood tears again. The saving, hot emotion was gone now, and I was trapped again inside the cold, dark mess of twisted emotions.

And then I woke up. Actually, Bobby woke me up. He and Jubilee were both next to me, concerned looks on their faces. "Chica, are you okay?" Jubes asked as she pulled me up into a sitting position.

I nodded slowly, feeling dazed and cold all of the sudden, as if someone had opened a window and let in the December winter. It was one of those feelings where you aren't sure if you are awake or dreaming still, and I was having a hard time remembering where I was. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine, no big deal," I mumbled.

"Are you sure?" Bobby asked, wrapping his arm around me, pulling me close to him. "You were shaking pretty bad while you were sleeping, and you screamed a few times, too."

I sighed, tired, even though I had just been sleeping. "Yeah, hun, I'm fine," I reassured him. "Just a nightmare."

"You wanna talk about it?" he asked me. There was genuine concern in his ice blue eyes, and I gave him a small smile.

"No, that's okay, I'll be fine, don't worry," I lied. "Just a stupid nightmare from that movie we were watching the other night. You know how I am about horror flicks."

"You mean Freddy vs. Jason?" he asked, relief flooding his face. "Oh come on, you know all that shit is just special effects anyway."

I smiled, embarrassed. "Yeah, I know," I responded sheepishly.

"Girl, maybe you should go upstairs and get some sleep," Jubilee suggested, stroking my hair. "You look beat. It's probably all that stress from the finals. We have really got to get the professor to do something about those."

I gave a weak laugh. "Yeah, like burn them. You're probably right," I agreed. "I feel like I just ran ten miles or something. I'm calling it quits for the night. Jubes, you gonna come up?"

Jubilee shook her head. "I just had two cups of coffee," she explained. "I'll be bouncing off of the walls for at least another hour or four."

"Bobby?"

"I've got some more vocabulary to look at before I hit the sack," he said. "But you go on up, and if you are still awake when I'm done, we can talk some more, okay?"

I hugged him close, and he kissed my on the top of my head. "Sweet dreams, baby," he whispered.

"Night," I mumbled as I rose and grabbed my notebook from the floor. "See you later, Jubilee," I said as I stumbled up the stairs.

Of course, I haven't fallen asleep yet. I am still awake, afraid to sleep, afraid of what I might see. My parents, Logan, all hating me, reviling me, treating me as something they found under a rock. A really ugly, disgusting rock.

When I went into my room, I was the only one. Kitty and Colossus had left to see a movie while I slept and weren't going to be back for another hour and a half. I shut my door, locked it, and then threw myself on my bed, unable to cry, but wanting to more than anything else in the world. For the first time in a long time, I reached for the dogtags that used to hang around my neck, but they weren't there.

I needed Logan, but I knew he wasn't coming back. He hadn't said it, he hadn't needed to. Something in his eyes when he left a month ago, something was different. He had lost something dear to him, and now there was no reason to come back to us, to me. What I had dreamt tonight had only confirmed my belief that he was gone. He never wanted me, he wanted Jean, and now there was no more Jean, and so, no more Logan.

"Logan, I need you," I whispered. "I need you so bad right now." It was like he was erased from my life, just as I was from my parents' lives. No pictures, no phone number, no address, no dogtags, nothing to ease the pain of separation. All that was left was me, a ghost of a girl with no past worth remembering and no future worth having.

I'm lying here, but Bobby still hasn't come up to talk, or Jubes to come up and sleep. But that's all right by me. Right now, all I want to do is stare at the ceiling and be alone. But I wish Logan were here to be alone with me.

˜™

Dec 20

The last few days have been a blur. I've been riding aimlessly, until finally, this afternoon, I drove into the heart of Mexico City itself. The nightlife is like everything I've seen times ten. The bars are louder, with a lot more booze and a lot more women, Mexican whores at their finest. I've slept with four of them in the past three nights, all of them drunk and money hungry. I gave them whatever they wanted from my wallet, they gave me whatever I wanted in bed.

There were no tender kisses, no sweet caresses, just hard, fast-moving sex. I had all the emotion of an animal as I went through them as if they were no more than a disposable object, something I could have my way with and then get ride of, like a toy. But I don't care anymore. I don't care because when I woke up this afternoon, a sledgehammer pounding at my skull and my mouth as dry as cotton (quickly remedied with a swig of Jack Daniels), I realized something.

I rose and walked towards the bathroom of the motel, scattering cockroaches as I went. I flipped the switch; the light flickered and then shone dimly in the grimy room. Squinting at the light (damn hangover), I took a good hard look at myself in the dirty mirror. I barely recognized the man before me. My white undershirt was dirty and still stained with the blood from that cage match; I hadn't changed clothes since that heart wrenching night.

My shaggy hair was everywhere, and I hadn't shaved in two days. Sideburns grew long and were now joined to a developing beard and mustache. My eyes were bloodshot, and I could taste the alcohol still burning my insides. All that liquor had made me throw up every night until there was nothing in my stomach but bile, which came up as well, nasty and bitter.

I saw that man in the mirror, and I saw my past. I saw the Wolverine from the Canadian bars, the vicious cage fighter that never lost, the drunken beast that rocked the northern woods of Canada, beating against an invisible cage that would never break. When I met Marie, I thought I had met Logan, or been reintroduced. I thought that cage door was open, and I was slowly emerging into the light again. But that fucking door was never open. All it did was taunt me to trust, to hope from something, then slam in my face the instant I got close. Logan was trapped in a cage, and he couldn't handle it, so the Wolverine came back to fight again, to fight against life.

"What life?" I growled angrily, my voice horse. For a moment, for two years, I thought I might have had a life. There were people who cared about me, and a chance to find out who I was. That chance was gone now though, and the people that supposedly cared about me proved only to haunt my dreams. _I was better off without a past, without a heart._ I was better off as a loner, an empty soul that drifted through life, living day to day out of the back of a trailer. It's so much easier not to care, so much easier to look out for number one. It was simpler being the Wolverine.

_Be the Wolverine._ The thought echoed through my mind, seeping through the cracks. I stared at this man, this beast in the mirror, and I saw him, all of his rage and anger in those bloodshot eyes. Suddenly, those eyes flashed, and in that second, I saw her again, watching me, haunting me, those soft brown eyes, crying for me, for her.

I lost it. I screamed, howling like the animal I was. My fist hit the mirror, shattering it, and then out came the claws. I attacked the bed, the mattress stuffing flying everywhere. Into the wall, once, twice, three times, the anger and pain increasing with each blow.

_More, _I thought numbly. _I need more. _I turned my claws on myself, slashing the skin on my forearms, gasping at the pain, the disgusting, terrible beauty of my blood as it bubbled out from the gashes, then healed before my eyes, like a movie in fast forward. I won't describe it further, even I can't stand to remember it.

Still she haunted me.

"Marie!" I screamed, my mind spinning as I dug my bloody claws into the bed, the wall, the shitty television that didn't work.

And, as abruptly as it had started, I stopped, falling to my knees. Someone was pounding on my locked door. "Fuck off, you bastard!" I hollered. Panting, I stared at the havoc. The TV. was in pieces on the floor, broken glass was everywhere, both from the screen and the mirror. The fluffy pieces of the mattress stuffing still fell from the air like dirty snow. Each fist to the wall resulted in three long slash marks, ripping open the plaster.

I felt nothing. I was empty, devoid of emotion. "Just an animal," I whispered. "An animal with claws. A Wolverine."

And that's when I knew it. I can never go back to New York. I can't go back to that place where Marie, my innocent, precious, goddamn Marie is. "Fuck," I whispered. "Fuck her for this." I can't go back, or I will do something that I know I will regret.

She will hate me forever, she will never want to speak to me again. Good. I hope I never see her face again. I hope I never see those damn eyes, those pleading eyes, looking my way again. She will move on with her life, with her little asswipe of a boyfriend, get married, find a way to have kids, grow old and die in her sleep.

And I'll still be here, still the Wolverine, still fighting for something that I can't find, I never will find, and I probably don't even really want to. The only person in the world with immortality is the one who has no reason or will to live. Fate has one fucked up sense of humor.

Kid, if you are reading this, then I sent it to you. I know if you don't know why I'm gone, then you'll search high and low for me, and you don't want to find me. I don't want you to see me like this, this monstrous freak. I won't say I am sorry, though I'm probably going to regret forever. Good luck, Rogue. I hope you get whatever it is you want out of life. I hope it treats you better than it treated me.


	7. Curiosity Killed the Cat

_Curiosity Killed the Cat_

December 23

Finally, the dreaded exams are over. I can purge all memories of Poe, World War I, trinomials and the quadratic formula, and the anatomy of a frog from my mind. After the last test, Jubilee, Bobby, Kitty, Colossus, and I exchanged gifts in the library before Kitty and Colossus had to leave for Chicago. Scott was driving them to the airport in twenty minutes, so we had to hurry.

Jubilee loved the outfit I gave her, and she told me so by nearly suffocating me in a huge hug. (You would think a girl that small—she's only 5'2"—wouldn't have so much strength, but Jubes could challenge Colossus to a fight and might actually give him a run for his money.) Immediately she put in the earrings and pulled her long black hair back, displaying them proudly.

Kitty bought me three new romance novels from my favorite author, and she had also gotten me a twenty dollar gift card to Starbucks, knowing my current mocha latte addiction. I couldn't wait to read the books; something about the sensuous, sexual material that was hidden between the paperback covers made me feel as if I could touch the character through the words, though in reality it was nothing more than a fantasy. But hey, fantasies are what these books are based on, right?

Bobby came close and put his arm around my waist. Leaning in towards my ear, he whispered, "Come with me."

I smiled, my heart fluttering with anticipation. Bobby was a master at surprises, and I had been wondering for weeks what he would get me.

I followed him into the hallway. The only light came from a warm glow that filtered out from the room we had just been in.

Safely away from the rest of our friends, Bobby smiled and pulled out a blue, crushed velvet box from his pocket. A small sliver bow was stuck on top. "Sorry about the wrapping job," he joked, handing it to me.

"Hey, I'm impressed," I told him, poking the bow. "It's better than the Sunday comics you used to wrap my birthday gift in last year."

He laughed softly. "Go on," he whispered. "Open it."

I looked from his ice blue eyes to the box, and then gently lifted the lid. Inside was a gold pendant resting on a little bed of white satin.

My eyes got huge as I pulled it out of the box, the fine gold chain snaking behind. Engraved on the front of it were an R and a B, entwined together like vines. They both shared the same spine, the straight line that you write first, and the top loop of the B was smaller and nestled inside the larger loop of the R. The slanted leg of the R protruded from the center of the B, where the two loops met, and at that vertex where all the lines connected was a small diamond.

"Bobby…" I gasped, unable to go on.

"Turn it over," he said softly.

I did so, and on the back, in small, curled script was the phrase "Endless Love". I stared at it for a moment, taking in the weight of those words, the soft, warm feeling inside my heart.

"Bobby," I said finally. "This is beautiful."

Smiling, he took the necklace from my gloved fingers and stepped behind me, moving my hair to the side with a gentle sweep of his hand. He fastened it, then wrapped his arms around my shoulders, pulling me close to him. "Now it's perfect," he whispered, kissing my hair.

I leaned into him, closing my eyes. I was in love, I knew it. I could feel the heat rush from my head to my toes. Tilting my head up, I looked into his eyes, and soon I was drowning in the icy blue depths of the iris. My eyes traveled downward towards his lips, soft and a faint pink. They looked so inviting, so kissable, and I was so close, barely centimeters away. So close…

"Kiss me," he whispered suddenly. "Please Rogue." His eyes pleaded with me, begged for my touch.

"I…I can't," I protested weakly. "I'm sorry, Bobby, I can't"

"Please Rogue, just try." He turned me around and put his arms around my waist, locking me in a tight embrace. "Please, I don't care what happens, I'll take the chance."

"Bobby, I don't want to hurt you," I whispered, avoiding his eyes now. I knew that if I looked at him, I would give in.

"I'll take that chance," he begged me, brushing my hair out of my face. "Rogue, I love you."

"I love you, too," I said softly, tears forming in my eyes. "I just can't, Bobby. I won't hurt you."

"Kill me, hurt me, I don't care," he whispered passionately. "Kiss me Rogue, love me."

"I _do_ love you," I said, the tears falling. "I love you so much, Bobby. But I will not hurt you." I buried my face in his sweatshirt, not wanting him to see me cry.

After a moment, I forced myself to look up into his eyes. For a spilt second, I thought I saw disappointment and even anger flash in those eyes, and I was scared to death. But just as soon as I saw it, it was replaced by a mixture of sadness and acceptance. It happened so fast, I wondered if I had imagined it.

I laced my black satin fingers through his. "I love you," I told him, struggling to keep my voice steady. "Can't that be enough?"

"Rogue—"

"Hey lovebirds!" Jubilee stuck her head around the corner, oblivious to what was going on. Bobby and I both jumped a mile. Seeing us, Jubes grinned devilishly. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything, but Kitty and Colossus are getting ready to leave. You guys coming to say good-bye, or what?"

I nodded, blinking frantically to stop up the tears. "Yeah, we'll be right there."

She turned and bounced happily back into the library, and Bobby wrapped his arm around my waist. "I love you, too, Rogue," he told me, wiping my tears away with his sleeve. "Of course that's enough."

Smiling weakly, I twisted my arms around him, and he held me close. "I'm sorry," I whispered, so quietly that he couldn't hear. "I'm sorry I can't give you what you want." He was so good to me; he deserved more, but I knew that I would never be able to give it to him.

"Come on," he said, pulling me towards the door. "We better get out there."

Touching the piece of gold around my neck, we walked hand in hand back into the library, all smiles once again. "'Endless love'," I murmured as he smiled down at me.

"Always," he whispered back.

After Kitty and Colossus left, the three of us made our way into the rec room where five or six of the younger kids sat, talking and watching _A Christmas Story_ on TBS. Kareena and another girl sat in a corner, talking animatedly about how neither of them celebrated Christmas. I smiled when I saw her. In just a few short weeks, the girl had gone from shy and quieter than a mouse to bubbly and optimistic. She had been working with the professor to control her powers, and she was learning techniques to calm herself down if she felt an anger or panic attack coming on. (These usually triggered her powers, and her hands would start to spark like a fork in a microwave.)

One thing Professor X encouraged her to do was paint, and it turns out that she is a natural. For a "Christmas-slash-Thank you" gift, she gave me a one-by-one foot canvas, a painting of a sunflower in full bloom. It was gorgeous, the way the yellows blended into the oranges and browns and reds. I even saw a hint of blue mixed in at the center. She had taken all the colors of the rainbow and pulled them into one object, which from far away, seemed two colors at best.

When Kareena saw Bobby and I hand in hand, her eyes began to sparkle, and I saw her hold back a giggle. I playfully stuck my tongue out at her. She loved to tease me about Bobby; she insisted that we were the perfect pair. And she reminds me, _every _time she sees me, which, when you go to school together and live there as well, can be quite frequently.

Bobby and I made our way to the couch and together we sat down, curled up in each other's arms, and happily watched Ralphie hop around in pink bunny pajamas. It had been a long day, and at some point I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, the credits were rolling, and Bobby and I were the only two left.

"Rogue?" Bobby whispered, stroking my hair out of my face. "Hey, you awake?"

I mumbled something along the lines of yes, and he laughed. "Come on, you are wiped. Let's get you upstairs to bed."

Slowly he lifted me off of him and pulled me up as I groaned pitifully. Flipping of the TV, he and I slowly made our way up the stairs to my room. Standing outside the door, I leaned on him and buried my face in his sweatshirt, trying to memorize this moment: the way he smelled, like hot chocolate and Abercrombie cologne. His body was warm against mine; his hands were wrapped around my waist. I looked up into his eyes, and this time I saw love in those icy depths; I quickly banished any thoughts of ever seeing anger and disappointment in those blue pools. I knew my mind was just playing tricks on me.

Opening my door, he gave me one last kiss on the top of my head, then whispered goodnight. Tiptoeing inside so as not to wake Jubes, I felt like I was on cloud nine. My head was spinning and my heart was pounding like a drum as I pulled on a pair of flannel pajama pants and a blue tank top. This had to be love; there was no other word that could describe how I was feeling right now. I crawled into my bed, suddenly realizing how dead tired I was, and I found myself humming the chorus to "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year." With my fingers entwined around the necklace much like I used to do with Logan's dogtags, I fell into a deep sleep, and for the first time in a long while, I slept like a baby.

December 24

Dear God, help me. I think I am losing it. That bastard. That fucking bastard. But I can't blame him, not really. It's mostly my fault anyway. No, not mostly, totally. It _is_ my fault, whether I want to own up to it or not.

I need to start at the beginning; I need to sort all this stuff out in my head. If I write it down, maybe I can get a grip on reality. Maybe it will all either be a really bad dream or an impossibly bad nightmare.

After I finished writing, I fell asleep on my bed, the necklace loosely twisted around my fingers. Jubilee's soft breathing lulled me into slumber, and for a few hours, I was blissfully unaware of what was really happening. For some reason or another, I woke up in the middle of the night. Moaning, I looked at my clock; the digital readout said 2:30 a.m.

Rolling over, I closed my eyes and tried to fall back asleep, but something was missing. Sitting up, I looked around the room, and suddenly it hit me. Jubilee wasn't in her bed. The blankets had been thrown back and her pajamas lay in a pile on the floor.

Curious, I climbed out of bed and padded towards the door in my bare feet. Opening it carefully, I stuck my head out and looked up and down the hall. It was silent and dark, except for the moonlight shining in from the window at the far end. I crept down the hall towards the stairs, and when I reached the top, I could see a faint glow coming from the rec room.

Silently, I went downstairs, and as I approached the doorway, I could hear the soft sounds of R&B music coming from the stereo. For a moment I wondered if, whatever was going on in there, I should just turn around and go back upstairs, pretend that I never saw anything. But my interest was piqued, and I knew that I would hate myself if I didn't figure out what was happening in the rec room at 2 a.m….

For as long as I could remember, I would constantly pester my mother as to what my Christmas gifts were, and every year she would tell me the same thing: "Curiosity killed the cat, Marie." Of course, this only infuriated me more. When I was twelve, she was in a particularly cranky mood when I asked her, and she finally just blurted out that I was getting a new 12-speed bicycle. At first I was stunned that she had even told me, then overjoyed. The problem was though, when Christmas morning came around and I ran downstairs to get that bike, something was missing as I unwrapped it. There was no excitement, no suspense: I knew what was coming. When my mom saw my face, she only said "Curiosity killed the cat, Marie."

And now, as I peaked around the corner, I could only think of one phrase to describe what I was feeling. Curiosity killed the cat.

This is what I saw: The room was entirely lit by vanilla candles; the scent itself was almost overpowering. The music pulsed softly from the speakers, and I now recognized it as one of Kitty's CDs. And there on the pool table were Bobby and Jubilee. They were both kissing each other furiously and Jubilee had a shirtless Bobby straddled, the white leather skirt I bought her sliding dangerously up her thighs. Her hands clawed at his chest and ran through his hair, and his hands were clearly sliding into second base. Not to be outdone, her hands began to slide down towards the waistband of his jeans, her fingers toying with the belt buckle. Bobby moaned in ecstasy.

I stood there, unable to breathe, unable to take my eyes away from the scene. _My boyfriend…my best friend…_ I heard them, I saw them, I was watching them with my own eyes, but a part of me refused to believe it. This wasn't real, this wasn't happening, no, no, no, no!

"Bobby?" I whispered, the words coming to my lips, unbidden. I pressed my hand to my mouth to silence myself, but he heard me.

He sat up, his eyes wide as he looked at me. "Rogue!" he said in disbelief.

A million thoughts were running through my mind, but I didn't know what to say. What is there to say when you find your boyfriend and your best friend making out on a damn pool table? For a moment, the three of us stared at each other.

"I…" Bobby stammered, struggling to explain himself. "I...Rogue, it's just that…I…you…."

But I already knew it. I could see it in his icy blue eyes; they spoke volumes that he would never be able to. Jubilee had, in this one night, given him more physical satisfaction than I ever had or would be able to. He kissed her, felt her up. She ran her hands over his bare chest, stroked his hair, his face.

He _touched_ her.

Struck by this blunt realization, I turned and ran. "Rogue!" I heard Jubilee call after me. I ignored her though, and practically fell down the flight of stairs towards the back door. I twisted the lock and ran out into the freezing night. The snow bit my feet, so cold it was burning them. Goosebumps covered my skin, and I was shaking all over, though it wasn't only from the cold.

_Untouchable_, I thought as I trudged through the snow. _Doesn't love me, can't touch me, unlovable. _

"Rogue!" Bobby's voice was hoarse as he hollered my name from the back door. He had a sweatshirt on now, and his boots had been shoved on carelessly. Jubilee stood next to him, her eyes wide in fear. For the first time since I had met her, she was speechless. "Rogue, what the hell are you doing?"

I stopped about fifty feet from the school. I said nothing. I just stared._ Untouchable. Unlovable. Unwanted._

"Rogue, you are going to freeze out there!" he yelled. "Come back here, let's talk, please!"

"What's going on?" I heard Ms. Monroe's voice from the hallway, and then her face appeared as well. Her white hair was loose, and she had a robe thrown over her nightgown. "My God," she said as she saw me, the freak, the freezing, untouchable freak, standing a foot deep in the snow, shivering. "Rogue, come back inside! You'll catch pneumonia like that!"

Reaching up, I felt the necklace that Bobby had given me just that evening. It was freezing cold. Flipping it over, I read the words again in the dim moonlight. _"Endless love."_

I lost it. Screaming, I ripped it from my neck and hurled it at the ground. I began to cry, loud, gutwrenching sobs that make me ashamed that they came from me. My knees gave way, and I fell to the ground, the cold enveloping me into numbness. I was oblivious to the cries that came from the doorway; there was only me now, me and the icy cold that wrapped around my body and my heart. This was all I could feel, all I would ever feel.

Bobby began to walk out in the snow. I could hear his boots crunching through it, following my small, bare foot prints. "Rogue, come inside with me," he said gently.

"Get away from me," I told him, my voice low. "Don't come near me. Get away!" I screamed, hurling a handful of snow at him helplessly. It broke on his sweatshirt as he stared at me, disbelieving. Slowly he stepped back and retreated towards the door. "Rogue, please, don't do this," he whispered. He was crying, too, now, I realized, but his tears were little comfort.

_Rogue, please, calm down,_ Professor Xavier's voice spoke gently inside my head. Ororo must have woken him telepathically, or maybe I did, I don't know or care, really. _Rogue, I know you've been hurt. Let Ms. Monroe help you inside, and I promise we will take care of this. Rogue, trust me, I promise everything will be all right. _

I didn't answer, barely acknowledged that he spoke to me, but when Ms. Monroe walked out hesitantly, I didn't scream, I didn't yell or throw things at her. I just sat there, crying through chattering teeth, as she tugged the sleeves of her robe down over her hands and gently pulled me up. "Shah," she whispered, rubbing my shoulders to try and warm them. "It's gonna be okay, honey," she said gently, trying to comfort me.

I kept crying though. _Untouchable. Unlovable. Unwanted. _Bobby and Jubilee stepped far away from the door as I entered, afraid to say anything to me, or to make eye contact.

Ms. Monroe led me to the professor's office, the same one where I had met Kareena for the first time. It looked a lot more intimidating in the nighttime, with the lights off and the moon shining in through the huge, floor to ceiling windows behind the desk. I dropped into one of the leather arm chairs, pulling my numb feet up onto the seat and burying my head in my lap.

She started a fire in the huge fireplace, and soon I felt the warmth slither its way toward me like snakes. She took over her fleece robe and wrapped me up in it, and slowly I began to regain feeling in my body, although I was still sobbing and shaking from the cold. She stayed with me until the professor came; I think she was afraid to leave me alone.

There was a knock, and then the oak door opened, and Professor Xavier rolled in, followed by Mr. Summers. They were both in their pajamas, although even in his pajamas the professor looked businesslike. Mr. Summers, in a Van Halen t-shirt and flannel pants, looked slightly less like a teacher and a bit more like a just-woken man in his late twenties. Still, he was awake enough to bring along an oversized blanket and quickly gave Ms. Monroe back her robe and covered me as if I were a toddler.

"Scott, Ororo, please go and return the rest of the children to their rooms," Professor X said, not taking his eyes off me. "Tell them that everything is fine and not to worry."

They nodded and walked out. Ms. Monroe squeezed my blanket clad shoulder gently as she left, silently letting me know how sorry she was. But I didn't want her pity. I didn't want to be pitied for what no one understood.

The door shut behind them, and it was just the professor and I in his dark office. The only sounds were my uncontrollable sobs and the crackling of the fire in the grate. "Rogue," he said gently, leaning in towards me. "Rogue, you need to talk to me. Tell me what happened."

I shook my head. I didn't want to say what I had seen.

"Can you show me?" he asked.

I paused for a moment, then nodded. Closing my eyes, I forced myself to let the thoughts of Bobby and Jubilee flood through my mind. His hand on her body, her lips on his, her skin touching his, his skin not touching mine, my poisonous, treacherous, deceiving flesh.

Other thoughts came unbidden to my mind, until I was caught up in an avalanche of memories. The dream of being back in Mississippi, my parents not knowing who I was. Logan, staring at me as if I were a freak of nature, the blood tears that poured. Realizing that Logan was leaving again, and God only knows when or even if he will come back to the mansion. Bobby promising to love me forever, giving me that gorgeous necklace. Bobby trying to kiss me in the hall, begging me to just try, that he would risk whatever happened. The look of disappointment on his face when I kept refusing, all the while wishing that I could feel his lips on mine.

And that black, sticky web, that tangle of thoughts and emotions that seemed to grow everyday, finally had taken me over. It was all I could feel now, all I could see, think of. _Untouchable, unlovable, unwanted._ Those three words reverberated though the entanglement, like a mantra. _Untouchable, unlovable, unwanted._

Abruptly, the flow of thoughts and memories stopped, like the twisting of a faucet. The professor sat back in his wheelchair, studying me with an unreadable mask on his face. It was like he was trying to figure out where all of this came from. After all, I never show my feelings to others. It is so much easier to hide them under a layer of false happiness and idealistic views. If no one can get past the outer layer, if no one can touch me inside, dig deeper to my core, then no one knows how alone I really feel. I don't want anyone's sympathy or apologies for what I am; it's not their fault.

I wondered if the professor could read all this in my face now, as I sat in a pathetic ball in his huge office.

After a moment, he spoke. "Clearly," he said gently, "this is far more than a relationship problem with Bobby."

_No kidding, Professor X, thanks for the analysis_, I thought bitterly. God, I hope he didn't hear me. If he did, he said nothing. (One thing I've noticed, he's very good at keeping his emotions in check. Never once have I seen him angry or upset or furious. He's always placid and collected, and so damn patient. He's the type of man that could sit there for hours and watch the grass grow, and still find beauty and enjoyment in it all.)

"I think it would be best if you slept in one of the guest rooms tonight," he continued. "Having you and Jubilee together in your current situation would be…unwise. Tomorrow, you and I should meet and discuss what has been going on as of late to make you feel this way."

Jesus Maude, where did he want me to begin? Let's see, I was born in a small town in Mississippi…

Nevertheless, I nodded, wrapping the blanket tighter around my body. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes a moment and tried to collect myself. "I'm really sorry, Professor Xavier," I said quietly, not daring to look at him.

"Don't worry, Rogue," he reassured me, placing his hand over mine, which was hidden under the blanket. "I promise everything will turn out right."

There was a knock at the door, and the professor took his eyes off me for the first time since he came in. "Come in, Ororo," he called out.

Ms. Monroe stepped inside, and Professor X rolled over to her. I expected him to start telling her how screwed up my mind was, but all he said was, "Rogue is going to stay in one of the guest rooms for tonight."

Ms. Monroe nodded as if this were a perfectly normal request, although usually if there are problems with roommates, the professor has us work it out on our own. "Do you need to get anything out of your room, Rogue?" she asked me as I stood up and shuffled over to her in my bare feet.

I shook my head. I didn't want to risk going into that room when there was a chance that Jubilee could be present. I didn't trust myself to maintain control.

"Try to get some sleep tonight, Rogue," Professor X told me as the two of us walked out of the room. "We will talk tomorrow after breakfast."

I nodded. As we left, I noticed that the professor was flipping on his desk lamp and beginning to write carefully in a planner or something. Great, now I was a specimen that he could observe and study and analyze.

Ororo led me silently down the vacant halls, but it was clear that everyone had not yet returned to dreamland. I swear I felt a pair of eyes on my back, and when I turned around, I heard a door at the far end of the hall snap shut. Clenching my teeth in an effort not to cry, I pulled the blanket tighter around my shoulders, wishing that I could vanish.

She took me to one of the guest rooms down by the staff wing. Standing in front of it, I realized that this was the room Logan stayed in when he was here. Ororo opened the door for me, gave me a quick embrace, and then shut it behind her, leaving me alone in the room, lit only by one small lamp in the corner.

I looked around wearily. The bed was perfectly made, the wood paneled walls shone softly in the lamplight. The bathroom was just around the corner, shining like Mr. Clean's immaculate chrome dome. It was meant to look homey, but to me, it just looked like a nice room at a Holiday Inn. It had no personality, no warmth, nothing. The only comfort I took in it was that Logan stayed here. But even then, there was no scent of cigar smoke, no dirty laundry lying around, no Logan, not really.

Safely inside the room, I finally let loose the torrent of tears I had dammed up in the hall. Flinging myself on the bed, I cried long and hard. I need to talk to someone, but who? I can't trust anyone anymore, who knows what might happen? You trust your boyfriend, he cheats on you; you trust your best friend, she stabs you in the back; you trust Logan, he leaves you with no thought for anyone else but himself.

Oh God, Logan, where are you? Lord, I need you now, Logan, please, come back to me.


	8. Merry Christmas

_Merry Christmas_

December 24

When I was a little girl, my favorite Disney movie was, without a doubt, "Sleeping Beauty." In it, a king and queen have a baby girl whose name is Princess Aurora. As with all Disney movies, everyone loves her, and they celebrate her birth by showering her with gifts. Among these people were the three fairies, Flora, Fauna, and Merriweather. The first two gave her the gift of beauty and song, but before the third (my favorite personally—she was the little stout one who always got the brunt of the jokes) could bestow her gift on her, the evil witch Maleficent came and cursed the princess. Before the sun set on her sixteenth birthday, the princess would prick her finger on a spindle and die. Merriweather lessened the curse by only making her sleep, but everyone was still devastated.

The three fairies took the princess Aurora away from her kingdom to live as a peasant girl in the woods. On her sixteenth birthday, she goes out in the woods, and meets and falls in love with a stranger whom she met "once upon a dream." The stranger is really Prince Phillip, her betrothed once she returns to her kingdom. However, neither knows who the other truly is.

The rest is the traditional Disney cookie cutter: Aurora returns to her kingdom, pricks her finger on a spindle (I never knew what the hell that was when I was little—for the love of God, who the hell uses those things anymore?), and falls into a deep sleep that can only be broken by her love's kiss. Of course, Phillip comes to her rescue, riding his white steed into the face of danger to defeat the dragon Maleficent, climb the tower, kiss and wake the princess, and then—bam!—two seconds later they are married and dancing the night away in her palace.

I didn't sleep at all last night. I sat in that room, in the dark, done with my tears. I was numb, my heart was cold. For the past few months, I realized, I have been like Sleeping Beauty. My eyes were closed; I was asleep. I couldn't see what was so obviously going on between Bobby and Jubilee. All those times they spent together, staying after to study, talk, watch television, shoot pool. I swallowed hard, thinking of how well they were "shooting pool" last night.

Unlike Sleeping Beauty though, my true love didn't kiss me, he kissed her. He kissed Maleficent, and for some reason, I finally woke up. There was no white steed, no three good fairies, no welcoming kingdom to greet me. I woke up, and now all I want is to prick my finger again and go back to sleep for one hundred years. Some fairy tale, huh?

I didn't go to breakfast. I stepped into the bathroom, washed my face, and swished some water in my mouth, trying to get rid of morning breath. In the mirror I could see now that my eyes were bloodshot, and my hair was wild. I tried to comb it through with my fingers, but it was a halfhearted effort, and eventually, I went back to my new favorite activity, staring at the wall.

I can't blame Bobby, nor can I blame Jubes, not really. This is my own fault, me and my goddamn genetics. I looked at my pale hands, gloveless and so innocent looking. I ran my fingers over my arms, my neck, my cheeks. I touched my lips, felt the bridge of my nose. Nothing happened to me. Nothing ever did, nor would it ever. The only person I can ever touch is the person I have ended up hating the most: myself.

Around nine, I finally moved from my spot on the bed and made my way down the hall to the professor's office. I left before breakfast was over with, hoping that I wouldn't bump into anyone in the halls; I wasn't ready to explain last night. I didn't want looks of pity, or worse still, repulsion. Already, I had heard people passing my room on their way downstairs, and the phrase "drama queen" had been uttered more than once.

I knocked softly on the oak paneled door, but there was no response. I knocked again, louder, but there was nothing. Slowly, I opened the door a crack and peaked inside. The large room was empty, the embers still burning from a fire earlier this morning. "He must still be at breakfast," I muttered, feeling very small in this huge room. Tiptoeing inside, much like one would enter a church, I made my way over to the safety of the armchairs in front of the desk.

I settled into one and prepared to wait for my shrink session with dread. I didn't want Professor Xavier inside my head, not this time. I didn't want him discovering things that no one else knew, that even I didn't know yet. Looking around, I noticed how oddly disorganized the desk was. The past few times I had been in here, it was always the image of perfection, much like the professor himself. Now though, pens lay uncapped a top the desk, and there were papers strewn here and there. I read one of the upside down titles, "The Mutant Dilemma: The Dangers of the Mutant Race, the Problems Posed by These Anomalies, and the Debate Over How to Best Handle the Issues of Mutant Registration, Mutant Confinement, and Selective Mutant Termination."

"_Selective Mutant Termination."_ It was a phrase that came into use shortly after the Mutant Registration Act was passed. Just as Professor Xavier and Jean feared, hate only led to more, even crueler hatred for our kind. This proposition of killing certain mutants whose powers the government deemed to be "a hazard and danger to the common society" was still in its earliest stages, but those of us who were old enough understood how quickly one thing could lead to another in the American political scene.

Letting my eyes travel over the desk, I saw that many of the documents were on the same topic. Some passages were highlighted, others had small sticky notes attached to them with Professor X's neat handwriting.

Then, I saw a small package buried under a stack of papers nearest to me. Checking the door to make sure that it stayed shut, I quickly pulled it out and set it on my lap. Reading the address label, I realized with a shock that the package was not for the professor, but for me. I saw the words "Postmark, Mexico" on the front. The stamps were expensive; they had to be, to get from Mexico to here in only a few short days, especially during the holiday rush.

_Who the hell is sending me packages from Mexico?_ I thought, sliding my fingers around under the edge. I had never been to Mexico, let alone known anyone from there. I didn't recognize the handwriting on the label. And why had the professor kept it instead of giving it to me during a mail call? Did he know who it was from? Did he plan on giving it to me at all, or was it going to be used as a paperweight from now on?

I debated on whether or not to open it. On the one hand, if he didn't give it to me, Professor Xavier probably had very good reasons as to why. On the other hand, it was _my_ package, and I had a right to know who it was from and what was inside it. Carefully, my fingers slid under one side of the packing tape; it snapped off with a loud pop that echoed loudly in the now seemingly cavernous room.

Suddenly there was a knock on the door that made me jump out of my chair. "Rogue?" the professor called, opening the door to let himself in.

Frantically I searched for a place to hide the package, but there was nowhere to put it. Finally, I didn't the only thing I could think of: I sat on it. I felt the cardboard crunch under my weight. "Hey professor," I said, clearing my mind in hopes that he wouldn't try to read it.

"Good morning, Rogue," he said pleasantly, as if I wasn't in here just a few hours ago, sobbing my heart out. I didn't feel any digging or prodding in my mind, so I figured I was safe.

Professor Xavier rolled over to his side of the desk and began to straighten his stacks of papers. There was an uncomfortable silence as the two of us sat there, although he didn't seem to notice it. I waited for him to say something, but he just continued to organize as if I wasn't there.

"Um, Professor?" I started, uncertain of what I was going to say. I didn't _want_ to say anything, but it looked like I had to, or I could be there all day. He looked up at me, and I continued. "I…I'm really sorry about last night, Professor, all the trouble I caused." The words came out in a rush.

"It's all right, Rogue," he said as he put down his papers. "I spoke with Bobby and Jubilee this morning and heard their side of the story. Would you care to tell me yours?"

_Not really_, I thought, but I had a feeling it wasn't really a request. "I walked in on them," I told my lap quietly, wringing my hands together. "They were in the rec room late at night, and I…walked in on them," I repeated uncomfortably.

Thankfully he didn't press. Unfortunately, the next question wasn't much better. "And then what happened?" he asked gently.

"I…I don't know, I just lost it, I guess," I mumbled, refusing to make eye contact.

He nodded. We sat in silence for a moment, and I wondered if he was waiting for more. Well, I wasn't going to give it. I wasn't opening up to him. No offense to the professor; he is a great guy and all, but I could never verbalize my feelings very well to anyone before. I was too afraid of ridicule, of what they might think.

Realizing this, Professor Xavier leaned forward a bit, folding his hands on top of his desk. "Is there anything else you would like to tell me, Rogue?"

Anything else? Of course there was, there were a million and one things I wanted to say about my parents, Kareena, trying to fill Jean's void, trying to understand Bobby and Jubilee, the dreams, the nightmares, trying to believe in Logan, not knowing Marie, only Rogue, the sticky, black ball of emotion in my heart.

I opened my mouth, but no words came. There was nothing I could say to describe everything that had been going on over the past month. There was just too much, so much I felt as if I would break under the weight of it all. The black strings of this particular web were much heavier then spider's floss.

"No," I said, nearly choking on the word. "No, there's nothing else."

"Rogue, I promise that everything you say here in this room is completely between the two of us."

He was trying so hard, but no, I refused to break, I refused to expose myself, to leave myself open to heartache again.

"There's nothing more to say, Professor," I said, quietly but firmly.

He sighed heavily and leaned back in his wheelchair. "Very well then," he told me. "If you do feel the need to talk though Rogue, please do not hesitate to come to myself or another member of the staff. You can trust us, Rogue."

For the first time, I met his eyes and saw determination in them. I nodded quickly, but he and I both knew that there was nothing more that would be said. I was done trusting; all that it has got me is grief, betrayal, embarrassment, and heartache. The mental walls were up; he wasn't going to read anything in my twisted mind anymore.

Without waiting for more, I stood, holding the small package behind my back. I turned, bringing it to my front in one seamless motion, although the professor had gone back to organizing his papers again, as if I were no longer there. However, as I made my way to the door, I could feel his eyes watching me carefully, questioning.

It took every last bit of will I had not to sprint to the door and slam it behind me. I wanted to shut out his mind, close off those piercing, calculating eyes. Once I reached the hall, I ran up a flight of stairs and back to Logan's old room. Only when the door was shut tightly behind me did I stop, breathing heavily. Leaning against the door, I dissolved into a puddle on the floor, sliding down and burying my head in my arms. Thoughts of the previous night flooded my mind once more, the two of them on that pool table. I traveled farther back, Kareena breaking down in my arms when she first arrived. I saw Logan leaving again, I watched the motorcycle roar out of the grounds, never once looking back.

I suddenly felt overwhelmingly tired, and all I wanted to do was sleep. Leaving the curious package where it lay on the floor, I dragged myself up and, walking sluggishly, almost drunkenly, towards the bed, I collapsed upon it and almost immediately fell into a deep sleep.

December 24

10:30 p.m.

Dear Professor Xavier,

If you are reading this, then you have obviously discovered I am no longer at the institute. If you are wondering what provoked my departure, you should know that I have opened and read that package that was on your desk, the one from Mexico that was addressed to me. I see now why you did not deliver it to me, why you tried to protect me. Unfortunately, sir, you cannot protect me from myself.

I'm sorry for all the trouble I have caused you and the school during my time here. I also apologize for last night and the scene that I made. I realize now that only the inevitable occurred, and I should have expected it.

It is clear to me that I no longer belong here, despite what you might say. I am a danger to the staff and the other students; staying here has only made me realize that I do not fit in even with the mutant community. I am leaving tonight because I see now that I have caused only problems and pain for too many people here. I cannot be trusted, and it is clear that I can't trust anyone either.

You wanted to know if there was anything else that I wanted to tell you. Well, there is, but far too much to be written here. Inside the front pocket of my bookbag is a red spiral notebook. Originally it was for the extra credit journals you assigned us at the beginning of the month, but over time, it became the one place where I could truly be me, I could truly exist without fear of hurting someone or being hurt…that is until now. Feel free to read it; in fact, please do, so that you will not think that my leaving is just some teenage act of rebellion or desperation.

To Logan, if you ever return: I am sorry. I am sorry that I caused you so much pain and inner turmoil, but I see now, now that I know you will never return to me, that I finally understand the truth: I love you, Logan. To put it more accurately, I _loved _you. When I was younger, it was a crush, more hero worship than love. After all, you did save my life on more than one occasion.

When you left for the first time, I was hurt, but those dogtags gave me a reason to hope. In the meantime, I pacified myself with Bobby, convincing myself that what we had was love. You came back, just like I knew you would. Stryker came, the X-Men were off on another whirlwind adventure straight out of Hollywood, and I began to feel things that a few short years ago I would have been appalled at myself for. After all, you are a grown man, God only knows how old, and I'm seventeen. Not to mention the fact that I have a boyfriend, a great guy, and you had no interest whatsoever in me. It was Jean you wanted, the one you couldn't have. You wanted the woman, not the girl.

Jean died, your only link to your past died, and I think a part of you died as well. In the days after we returned from Canada, you were more distant from me than you had ever been. You were drinking constantly, and always secluded in your room or outside somewhere. When I did find you, it wasn't the same. We would talk, but there was a wall between us now, although neither of us would acknowledge it. You see, Logan, you still saw me, as you so perfectly put it, your "sweet, innocent Marie". What you could not see was that I was growing up. I will be eighteen in two months; I will be an adult legally, but mentally I have been one for years. You wanted the woman, what you did not realize was that there were women now.

You left again, but this time, there were no dogtags, nothing to ensure your return. I could see it in your eyes when you told me that you had to go, that you had to get out of here and surely I would understand, because after all, we understood each other better than anyone else, right? "I'll see you 'round, kid," you told me as you hugged me good-bye.

I smiled, I nodded, I waved, but inside my heart was breaking. Inside I was crying, begging you to stay with me, don't leave me again, please.

But you did, and you didn't look back, not once.

The little girl you found in the back of your trailer has grown up before your absent eyes, Logan. I am a woman, physically, mentally, spiritually. I have loved, and now I have lost. Ironic really that the one man who has always claimed to understand what I was going through really never had a clue what was truly going on inside my heart. It was screaming for you, Logan, and you were—_are_—deaf.

Aren't you proud of me, Logan? See me now, all grown up? I've suffered heartache, pain, betrayal, and loss. And now I am doing what the one man who I thought understood who I was did: I am leaving everything and everyone I ever loved. I'm leaving them before they have a chance to leave me. And for what? Who knows, who cares, right? As long as I'm looking out for number one? After all, that's what you always did.

Good-bye everyone, thank you for everything you have ever taught me.

And good-bye, Logan. I loved you.

—_Rogue_

˜™

_Professor Charles Xavier sat up in bed, every sense alert. His whole body was pulsating with danger, his mind was screaming. _"Rogue," _he whispered._

_Immediately, he pulled himself out of bed and into his wheelchair. _Scott, Ororo,_ he thought, sending the message to the rooms of the two adults. _Wake up and meet me in my office now. Something is terribly wrong…

_It was 1:26 a.m. on Christmas morning._


	9. Where To Go From Here

_Where To Go From Here_

EMERGENCY 911 CALL TRANSCRIPT

SERIAL NUMBER: MVA137900-571

DATE: December 25

911 DISTRICT: #84

PHONE OPERATOR: Margaret Henderson

CALL BEGIN: 1:43 a.m. Eastern

OPERATOR: 911 Emergency. What is the nature of your emergency?

CALLER: I need to report a car accident off of I 91.

OPERATOR: Yes, sir, and were you or anyone traveling with you involved in this accident?

CALLER: No, I was driving when I saw the car and pulled over.

OPERATOR: What does the scene look like, sir?

CALLER: The car's upside down in a ditch. It looks like it spun out of control or something. I can't see anyone else around. Christ, I think they're still inside!

OPERATOR: Stay calm sir, I need you to help me out. I need you to approach the vehicle and tell me if you see anyone who might be in need of medical assistance near or around the site.

CALLER: Okay, hold on...oh shit!

OPERATOR: What is it, sir? Talk to me.

CALLER: There's a woman in the driver's seat. She's unconscious.

OPERATOR: All right, sir, I need you to listen to me very carefully. Do not, I repeat, do not try to move the woman! Do not try to get her out of the vehicle, understand?

CALLER: Yeah, yeah I understand...

OPERATOR: Is she breathing?

CALLER: Um...it's hard to tell, I can't get too close, there's glass everywhere.

OPERATOR: Okay sir, I need you to tell me where you are exactly. Are there any mile markers or exits nearby?

CALLER: Yeah, I'm about a half mile from mile marker 21.

OPERATOR: The paramedics are on their way. I need you to stay with me on the line until they get there.

CALLER: Yeah sure...

OPERATOR: Sir? Is everything all right?

CALLER: Yeah, I just... Is there anything I can do till the paramedics show up?

OPERATOR: No sir, there is more danger in you trying to move her from the vehicle than if you left her there.

CALLER: Okay. (sirens in background) I think...yeah, they're here!

OPERATOR: All right sir, you need to let them take it over from here. Don't leave the scene until the police have arrived. They'll want to ask you some questions.

CALLER: Okay, thank you so much.

OPERATOR: You're welcome, sir.

CALL END: 2:02 a.m. Eastern

˜™

By 1:32 a.m., Scott, Ororo, Hank, and Kurt had all gathered in Professor Xavier's office. The four of them were still in their pajamas, and they stood around, bleary eyed and confused. This was the second night in a row they were woken by Charles; they had all been looking forward to a good night's sleep. No such luck. None of them had any clue what was going on, but the note of urgency in Charles' tone had them all worried.

Kurt and Ororo were seated in the two chairs by the desk, while Dr. Hank McCoy paced by the fireplace anxiously. Scott leaned against the mantle, deep in thought. "Something is terribly wrong..." the professor had said.

Suddenly the door opened, and Charles rolled in and over to his desk, carrying a red notebook and what looked like a small black day planner. Ororo recognized the drawings on the cover of the notebook as Rogue's, and instantly her concern deepened. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, pulling her terry cloth robe around her tightly.

"Rogue is gone," Charles said bluntly. "She took one of the cars and left, my guess would be sometime around 12:00 or 12:30."

"I don't understand," Ororo said. "Why would she leave? Obviously she was having problems with Bobby and Jubilee, but still, she wouldn't run away."

"I believe that the cause is very similar to the first time she ran away," Charles told her.

"Wait a minute," Kurt interrupted, his accent making his w's sound more like v's. "She has run away before?"

"Yes. The first time, she believed that I was furious at her and the whole school feared her because she was forced to use her powers on Logan after he unintentionally stabbed her," Charles explained. Kurt's eyebrows rose, and Hank stopped his pacing and stared at the professor. However, both of them knew that now was not the time for questions.

"That first time she felt that, even among mutants, she did not belong," Charles continued. "She cannot control her power like the rest of us. That constant reminder forced her to run, just as she ran from her parents when she first discovered her powers.

"When I spoke with her after that incident, she expressed these feelings to me, and I reassured her that she would always have a place here. I thought that we had gotten past this," he sighed. "But apparently we did not."

"But how do you know that was why she left?" Scott asked.

Charles held up the red notebook. "This originally started out as an assignment for my senior class: journal entries, whatever the students felt like writing down. It was supposed to be turned in the day of the exams, but Rogue did not hand hers in. I wondered why at the time, but I simply assumed it was because she didn't finish the assignment. I had no idea what was really going on."

"Which was what?" Ororo asked apprehensively.

"I don't have time to get into it all at the moment," Xavier said. "But it runs much deeper than normal teenage issues. I did read the last entry as it was a letter to me; however; I found that a large part of it was directed towards Logan."

"I knew it," Scott muttered under his breath. "It's always Logan! Every time something goes wrong around here, it always goes back to him."

Charles raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

"Why Logan?" Ororo asked. "He's been gone for a month now."

"Again," he said with a sigh, closing his eyes. "I fear that this was my doing. Logan was having difficulty accepting the end of Stryker, thus the end of his search for his past. I gave him this-" he held up the black leather book-"to write down any of the dreams he might have. I was hoping it would help him uncover more about his past, but I fear it uncovered some very deep, dangerous feelings, feelings that were unknown even to him.

"In the end, he came to an ultimatum: in order to protect himself and Rogue, he would never return to the mansion. He sent this to her so that she would know why, but I foolishly chose not to give it to her. I knew that she would be very upset, and after Bobby and Jubilee came into the picture I knew it would be even worse.

"This morning, she came into my office early and must have found it addressed to her. Naturally she took it, read it, and reacted exactly as I thought she would. She ran."

Everyone was silent for a moment, absorbing this shocking information. Then, Dr. McCoy broke the silence. "So what do we do now? How can we find her?"

"Last time I used Cerebro, but it's still being repaired from Stryker's invasion of the mansion." Xavier sighed and leaned back in his chair. "So I suppose that we shall have to—as Logan once so adequately put it—do it 'the old fashioned way': look."

"Storm and I'll take the jet," Scott offered, jumping into familiar territory, the role of leader.

Xavier nodded. "Go now," he said, although Ororo and Scott were already half way to the door. "Call us if you find anything."

As the door shut behind the two X-men, Charles addressed the two blue mutants before him. "For the time being, do not mention any of this to the students, not until we know more about her whereabouts. I will speak to Bobby and Jubilee; they're be smart enough to know what is going on."

"Of course," Kurt responded. "But what about the little one? Kareena?"

"If she doesn't ask, then don't tell her. She's just now starting to conquer her fear of her powers, and she relied very much on Rogue for support. If she finds out that her role model ran for fear of her own mutation…"

The two of them nodded in understanding, and they left the room together, shutting the door quietly behind

them. Alone in his dark office, Charles leaned back in his wheelchair, pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand. His head was still throbbing from the tremendous jolt that had woken him. The rest of the school was still calm, and even without Cerebro, Xavier had no doubt that Storm and Cyclops would find Rogue.

Even so, he knew something wasn't right. Something was still very wrong, and for the first time in a long time, Professor Charles Xavier realized that he had no idea what to do next.

˜™

Dec 25

God, I can't believe I am still doing this. I thought I was done with all this diary bullshit. I don't have the goddamn book anymore; I sent it back. I haven't had a dream since then. That is until now, and I can't get it out my mind. Something doesn't feel right, and as pathetic as it sounds, I'm hoping that writing it down (followed by burning it) will help me forget. So here I am at two in the freakin' morning, writing on the inside cover of a hotel phonebook like some damn pansy, swigging Jack Daniels as fast as I can.

I was driving, and outside the car window, the snow was falling, pelting my windshield furiously. I was on an empty highway, and something was wrong with me. My knuckles were white as I gripped the steering wheel, and my foot had pinned the accelerator to the floorboard. I was driving way too fast for the weather; my speedometer glowed 95mph and was steadily climbing. I knew I was going too fast, I could feel the tires barely touching the road. But didn't slow down.

Suddenly, the car began to slide on top of a layer of ice hidden under a dusting of snow. My backend spun out and I began to fishtail wildly. I tried to steer back onto the road, but by that time, all hope of controlling the car was gone. I began spinning out, watching helplessly as the nighttime winter wonderland quickly became a whirling, snowy hell.

The car hit the edge of the road, and then it happened. I flipped, and the car began to roll countless times. Inside, I was being shaken like a pea in a can. The airbag deployed; the seatbelt locked. I could feel it cutting open my skin near my collarbone in an effort to keep me in place. My legs were crushed, pinned beneath the dash and the now smashed up floorboard. There was a loud crash, and the windshield shattered, glass shards flying inside the car.

On the final flip, my head slammed into the doorframe with a sickening crack, not once, but twice. On the second time, I blacked out, and at that moment, my eyes snapped open and I sat up in bed, teeth chattering. I felt as if I were still out in that freezing cold weather, when I was actually holed up in a motel in relatively warm Mexico City.

Sighing, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and rested my head in my hands. I thought I was done with all this nightmare crap. I racked my brain, trying to think of when I had ever crashed a car before, but the only time I could come up with was when Ma—when she and I were attacked by Sabertooth nearly two years ago. But it was daytime then, I wasn't wearing a seatbelt, and I certainly wasn't driving a little sports car. I never liked those things; they were too small and the guys that drive them were always pompous little pricks. _Kind of like Scott,_ I thought with a small smile. Why would I drive so damn fast in that weather? I mean, I know I've done a lot of dumbass things in my life, but plowing through the snow in a little, no traction racer was not one of them.

It was so cold, and I could still feel it in my bones, as if the icy chill had clung to the adamantium. I grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniels from the dresser and took a drink, feeling the heat travel down into the core of my body. The problem was, it couldn't defeat the sick, apprehensive feeling in my gut. Something wasn't right, but I had no idea what.

Now that I've written it down, that feeling hasn't gone away yet. Something is telling me that danger isn't too far off, but I'm sick of listening to that voice telling me that everything I do is wrong in some way. I'll bet I can drown it. Logan needs to shut the fuck up and let the Wolverine take over. It's 2:30 in the morning; a bit early to be getting drunk, but I can always look at it as just being late at night. And nighttime is the perfect time to let your animal side take over.

˜˜

It was 10:30 a.m., and Charles still had no news of Rogue. No matter how he tried, he still could not shake the apprehensive feeling in the pit of his stomach. He sat at his desk where he had been since 1:30 that morning, carefully and painstakingly reading and rereading every word of Logan and Rogue's journals. Some of the similarities of their entries struck him as odd; for example, the dream Logan had on December 17th, in which Rogue was alone with Rogue in a white room, bore a striking resemblance to Rogue's dream two days later on December the 19th.

_The difference is,_ Xavier thought, _what Logan interpreted as a calming, safe, innocent setting, Rogue saw as "sterile" and much more like a prison._

_Also, _he noted, flipping through the black leather book filled with Logan's small, cramped scratches, _every single one of Logan's entries mentions, or has entirely to do with, Rogue. _He flipped to a page he had marked with a Post-it and began to read:

12/11—"Suddenly I realized what had made her look so different: there were tears standing in her eyes. Moreover, she looked defeated, as if she had just given up hope, although of what, I had no idea. The next morning though, it was as though we had never spoken earlier. She was the same bright, cheerful Marie that I know so well. _That_ was my Marie, my sweet, innocent, complete opposite of me Marie. We never talked about that night again."

The words "sweet" and "innocent" caught his eye. Furrowing his eyebrows, he reached over to Rogue's notebook and flipped till he found the entry he was looking for.

12/14—"_Kid…_God, how I hated that word. What has started out almost as a term of endearment had become an excuse to get me to shut up and stop badgering him. I wasn't a little girl anymore…But why couldn't he see that I wasn't a child?…No, I'm just 'kid'. Just a child, nothing more in his eyes than a child. Little, baby Marie, sweet innocent Marie…"

They spoke as if they were reading each other's thoughts, but it was impossible. Logan was thousands of miles away, and he had left no phone number to contact him. He had simply vanished. So how had Rogue known that he would not return long before the book returned to the mansion?

There were so many unanswered questions, and Xavier was at a lost as to where to begin. With neither parties present, it was rather difficult. Sighing, Charles returned to the two journals and prepared himself to read them for the seventh time that morning.

He was so engrossed in his task that when his private line shattered the monotonous silence, he dropped the pen he had been holding. Shaking his head, he picked up the phone and leaned in his chair. "Hello?"

"Hello, may I please speak with Mr. Charles Xavier?" The voice on the other line was a woman's, clipped and businesslike.

"Speaking," Xavier responded.

"Mr. Xavier, my name is Officer Julia Ramirez of the Hartford Police Department."

The cold, apprehensive feeling in the pit of his stomach grew. "Is something wrong, officer?"

"Sir, at approximately 1:30 this morning, a young woman driving a red sports car down Interstate 91 lost control of the vehicle and flipped into a ditch. The paramedics could find no identification on her, but the license plates are registered under your name, is that correct, sir?"

There was no response. Xavier sat, stunned, holding the phone numbly.

"Sir?" Office Ramirez repeated. "Are you there, Mr. Xavier?"

"Yes," Xavier snapped himself back to reality. "Yes, I'm here. That—that car is mine. What about the woman, is she…?"

"She's alive, sir, but I am not allowed to release medical information over the phone, and only to the patient's parents or relatives. Are you related to this woman, Mr. Xavier?"

Xavier thought for a moment, trying to find the best way to phrase "the principal and leader of a boarding school/haven for mutants" without telling the policewoman that Rogue or he were, in fact, mutants. "I am her guardian," he said.

"I am very sorry that I had to be the one to inform you of the accident," Officer Ramirez said, not really sounding that apologetic at all. "I suggest that you come upstate as soon as possible. There is paperwork that needs to be filled out, and you can find out more about her condition once you have arrived. For the time being, I need to know what the woman's name is, her date of birth, and any medical conditions that might interfere with any medications the doctors may administer."

Xavier quickly gave the woman the information she needed, but his mind was racing. As soon as he hung up with the officer, he picked up the radio transmitter to the X-jet and told Storm and Cyclops to return to the mansion immediately. He had found Rogue, and as he wheeled out of his office and down the hall, he knew that she was in more danger now than he had ever realized.


	10. Instincts

_Instincts_

The two hour drive to Hartford General was one of the longest in Charles' life. The policewoman on the phone refused to divulge anymore information until he arrived and his signature was on the necessary documents. He had tried time and time again to make a telepathic connection with Rogue's mind, but there was nothing. He told himself that it was the distance that kept him from establishing a connection, but he knew that the distance was not so great as he made it out to be.

As a result, he was a mess of nerves on the inside, though his outward appearance was the usual stoic, sensible professor that everyone expected. Charles had learned how to mask his emotions long ago, back when he first took three frightened teens under his wing. In teaching them the full extent, and most importantly, control of their abilities, he himself learned that the more he hid his emotions, the calmer he was, the easier and more comfortable the children were. He was a rock on which they could cling to while the storm of hatred and confusion raged around them.

Scott however, was a different story entirely. If Charles was like a rock, Scott's emotions were as shaky and fragile as sand; try to grasp it tightly in your fist, and it slides out and around and in between the cracks till there was nothing left but a few measly grains. As he drove, his jaw was clenched and his knuckles were white from gripping the steering wheel. If Charles hadn't insisted that he drive appropriate to the weather conditions, it was very possible that the two of them could end up in the same shape as Rogue.

From time to time, Charles would enter Scott's mind in an effort to calm him. Inside those complex depths were thousands upon thousands of emotions, and Charles did his best to quell the anger and fear that Scott felt. The fear that Scott would lose another loved one was prominent in his mind. He had already lost his family when he was younger, and Jean only a few months before. Charles did not know what Scott would do if he lost a student and a very good friend at that.

The anger though, Charles found, was much more difficult to suppress than the fear. Scott was furious with Logan. Although the two of them had always had their rivalries and jealousies with one another, there was never anything to cause alarm. After all, Charles had reasoned, boys will be boys, no matter what age they appeared on the surface. Now though, Scott saw Logan as a true and imminent danger, especially to Rogue. In his mind, Logan was chiefly responsible for Rogue's flight (and Charles had to admit that that was, in fact, true), and therefore the reason she was now lying in a Connecticut hospital, defenseless against anyone who might discover that she was a mutant.

And that was Charles biggest concern. If anyone touched Rogue skin to skin, there would be mayhem at the hospital, and too many questions. Rogue could be quarantined, turned over to the government, or worse—though Charles would not let him think of that final, fatal possibility. Not to mention that something that terrible might just tip the latest mutant petitions into the conservatives' favor, causing mass paranoia for both mutants and humans alike.

Two tense hours later, they finally pulled into the parking lot of Hartford General Hospital. It was a huge building, rising fifteen or so stories into the air. The automatic doors of the emergency entrance parted noiselessly for the two men, and they entered, quickly and silently. The waiting room of the ER was rather quiet for Christmas Day; a few holiday cooking incidents and one sledding accident sat trying to awkwardly and painfully fill out forms with burned or broken fingers.

Scott and Charles approached the desk, where a sign politely requested that they respect the patients and keep their noise level to an absolute minimum; also, all cell phones and pagers should be turned off in order to refrain from interfering with the medical equipment, and please have a happy holiday and a happy new year.

Scott scoffed at the cheerful sign as they two of them stood before the glass window. A short, dumpy woman somewhere in her fifties appeared on the other side. She wore scrubs with tiny kittens chasing balls of yarn, and her chin length, golden hair was held back with a matching pink headband. "Hello," she said, smiling warmly. "How may I help you gentlemen?"

Scott's attitude only became more frosted as the woman's sparkling hazel eyes tried to connect with his underneath the layer of rose quartz lenses. "We need to speak with Officer Julia Ramirez," Xavier said crisply.

At this, the woman's voice grew softer and her tone more sympathetic. "Oh I see," she said gently. "You must be the father of that young lady from the car crash. Just a moment, let me get her."

A moment later, she returned, a young policewoman and a doctor in his late forties in tow. Officer Ramirez was a tall Latina woman, with her black hair pulled back into a tight bun. She had a no nonsense scowl on her face; her slender hands jutted angrily on her voluptuous hips. Scott saw a fierceness in her dark eyes, and realized that, had she not given off such an icy, unapproachable vibe, she could have been quite attractive.

Officer Ramirez quickly introduced herself and shook Charles' and Scott's hands. "It's nice to meet you both. This is Dr. Youngstone. He's been in charge of Marie's care."

As he shook the doctor's hand silently, Scott realized how foreign the name "Marie" sounded to him. For three years she had been Rogue; the only person who had ever called her Marie was Logan. His jaw clenched at the thought, and he realized that he might have squeezed Dr. Youngstone hand just a bit too hard and quickly let go.

"If you will sign these release forms, Mr. Xavier," Officer Ramirez stated, thrusting him a clipboard and a pen. "I can be on my way and let Dr. Youngstone handle it from here."

Without even reading the papers, Charles quickly scrawled his signature on the necessary lines and handed the clipboard back to the woman. "Thank you," she said quickly, tucking it under one arm. "Have a happy holiday, Mr. Xavier, Mr. Summers." Without a backwards glance, she brushed past them, her long strides determined and her gaze straight ahead.

"You'll have to forgive Officer Ramirez," Dr. Youngstone said with a sigh after the young woman left. "She's...not really a people person."

"Charming," Scott muttered.

"If the two of you would care to follow me over to one of the family rooms, I would be more than happy to talk to you about Marie's condition," he offered kindly, gesturing to one of the small sitting rooms across the hall.

The three men entered, and Dr. Youngstone shut the door behind them. As Charles maneuvered his wheelchair around the two chairs, Scott sat across from the doctor and studied him for a moment. He was middle-aged, with graying hair and a receding hairline. His face was creased with early wrinkles, and he had permanent dark circles under his eyes from too many late shifts. It was, however, a caring face, one that had seen many patients survive, and many that hadn't. He knew the miracle of life, and he was the wiser and kinder for it.

"So," Charles began the conversation. "How is she?" It was the question the two mutants had been dreading the answer to since they had first received the phone call earlier that morning. They waited with bated breath.

"She's not fantastic," the doctor admitted. "According to police reports, her car slid on a patch of ice, and she lost control. From the state of her injuries, the vehicle may have flipped up to four or five times."

He checked his clipboard. "She appears to have broken her left wrist, four ribs on the left side, and shattered her right tibia and fibula. Also she has a nasty laceration about five inches long across her forehead, from her left eyebrow to her ear. She has a nasty concussion from slamming her head into the car."

"Oh, God," Scott whispered, unable to hold it in.

"Now we put her wrist in a cast and wrapped her ribs, but her leg is going to require surgery. If you look at the x-rays..." He pulled a transparent photo out of a manila envelope and placed it on a panel mounted on the wall. Flipping off the lights, he turned on the light panel, and suddenly a picture of what Scott assumed was supposed to be a shin. "You can see, the bone is completely shattered. There are several fragments of bone simply floating around or lodged in the muscle, and there are three clean breaks in the tibia and two in the fibula."

"What will need to be done during surgery to fix it?" Charles asked, his voice grave.

"Most likely we will have to use pins and screws to put the breaks back together," Dr. Youngstone replied. "As for the shards, we'll have to take those out entirely. The bone will regenerate itself eventually, and it will be as though it was whole to begin with."

Charles nodded. "Will there be any lasting effects?"

"There is a possibility that, due to extensive nerve and muscle damage from the bone shards in her leg, she might have difficultly walking. However, with physical therapy and practice, she should be completely normal within a year."

"I see," Charles responded. He sighed, and leaned back in his wheelchair.

"I know that this is a lot to take in," Dr. Youngstone said sympathetically, flipping the lights back on and putting the x-rays back inside his envelope. "But she's really very lucky, actually. Her seatbelt and the airbag most likely are what kept her alive. There's no internal damage that we can tell so far, though we have her in the ICU for the next few days, just incase something should develop. There's no permanent damage, provided she takes medication and completes physical therapy. She should be on the road to recovery very soon."

"I understand," Charles said. "Thank you so much for everything, Dr. Youngstone."

"No trouble at all. Would you like to see her?"

"Please," Scott answered for them. After hearing all that, he needed to make sure she was still alive for himself. As it was, his hands were shaking, both with fear and suppressed rage.

"Follow me, gentlemen."

Dr. Youngstone led them down the hall to the elevator, where they rode up to the fifth floor, the Intensive Care Unit. Rogue was down two more halls and past a waiting room, number 542. Silently, Dr. Youngstone opened the door and let the Scott and Charles in first. The room was fairly small; there were two beds separated by a curtain. The first bed was empty, and when they went behind the cloth partition, Scott couldn't help a small gasp.

Rogue was unconscious, breathing slowly and evenly. She was hooked up to an IV, and it was dripping softly into the long thin tube going into the crook of her elbow. A small splint was taped to her finger; a cord led from it to an EKG machine, monitoring her heartbeat in the background. The soft beeping was oddly soothing to Xavier and Scott. It meant she was alive.

A bandage was wrapped around her forehead, snow white except for a rusty red-brown around her left temple. Her bottom lip was spilt open, and it was swollen to twice its normal size. There were small cuts on her face (from the shattered windshield, Scott guessed), and the majority of the left side of her face was a mess of purple and black bruises. Her left forearm was already bound in a plaster cast.

"It's really not as bad as it looks," Dr. Youngstone assured them. "Once the swelling and discoloration goes down on her face, she'll look much better. The concussion and the leg are our biggest concerns currently. Right now, I have her on morphine and a sleeping medication. Sleep is really the best thing for her right now. The less she is doing, the more time and energy her body can put towards healing itself."

Charles nodded. "When is the earliest you can schedule her surgery?" he asked.

"I can do it this afternoon, if you would like," Dr. Youngstone responded congenially.

"The sooner, the better."

"Of course," he replied. "I'll leave you two alone for awhile. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to page me."

After the door shut, Scott dropped into one of the chairs by the bed, his head in his hand. He almost couldn't bear to look at Rogue. She looked as if she had been beaten within an inch of her life, which, Scott reminded himself, was probably true. _I'm going to kill Logan,_ he thought furiously.

"No, Scott," Xavier said quietly, placing his hand on the young man's shoulder.

"Why not?" Scott whispered viciously. He looked up into Xavier's eyes, blue steel. "This is his fault, professor, his goddamn fault. He drove her to leave, you know that! The freakin' letter that she wrote couldn't have made it any simpler to figure out!"

"Scott, while you and Logan have not had the best relations in the past, you need to put that behind you. I need you here now. I need you to focus on the problem at hand: Rogue is in a public hospital with no protection from skin-to-skin contact."

Scott sighed, defeated. "What do we do?"

Assured that he was calm, Xavier removed his hand and moved himself towards the bed. "So far we have been very lucky. With open wounds and no information about the patient, the doctors and nurses could take no chances that Rogue might not have HIV or some other type of illness that can be spread by blood contact. They wore gloves and masks for the whole of the ER procedure. The cast will help some, and the bandage as well. State law requires that all medical staff wear latex gloves before touching a patient, but I don't want to take the chance that some lazy intern will think that it's no big deal if he just checks the IV with his bare hands."

"Can you get it into the doctor's head that everyone absolutely_ has _to wear gloves when treating her?" Scott suggested.

"That's my plan," Xavier responded. "But I can only suggest it, like a nagging though in the back of his mind. I can't control him and his staff 24/7."

"So there is still a risk then."

"A very large one," Charles agreed. "For now though, our chief priority is to make sure that Rogue gets well as fast as possible. We have time to think about our options; they will wear gloves in surgery, you can be sure of that."

Scott nodded. "I'm going to go call the school," he said, rising from his chair. "Ororo is worried sick; they all are." He made for the door, then stopped and turned around. "You know, all the kids are going to find out."

"I know. Ororo, Kurt, and Hank can handle it. They are smart enough to know how much to tell the children."

The door clicked softly behind Scott, and Charles leaned back in his chair, his eyes resting on Rogue's beaten form. The poor girl was in for a lot of pain, Charles thought, both physically and mentally when she awoke. _How did it come to this?_ he wondered. _How did it get this far without my knowledge? Why wasn't I aware of what was going on inside the mind of one of my brightest students?_

He reached over and pulled Rogue's blanket up to her collarbone. "Why, Rogue?" he asked. "Why didn't you come to me? Why couldn't you let me help you?"

And, despite himself, despite his calm, controlled façade, a tear escaped the corner of his eye.

ï‚˜ï‚™

The road stretched out in front of him, long and winding. Logan rode without really concentrating on where he was going. He didn't care; one motel was just as good (or, considering these motels, bad) as the next. There were a few cars on the highway, but not many people were traveling on Christmas Day.

Christmas had never meant much to Logan; in the past fifteen years he had done the same thing on that day as he had any other day of the year. With no family to celebrate with, and considering that he wasn't exactly the most religious, he joined the other loners and drunks at a local bar, listening to cheesy holiday songs on the radio and taking advantage of discounted Christmas booze.

Last year, he was going to go back to the mansion. He was going to surprise Rogue, wish her a Merry Christmas. He had even bought her a pair of gloves as a gift. They were a sheer dark blue; he had liked them because you could see her skin through the transparent fabric. Before he could make it make to the school though, he got sidetracked. Something about Alkali Lake, something about his past, and suddenly, Christmas wasn't so important. The gloves were stuffed into his bag, and eventually lost somewhere.

_Rogue..._ What was she doing now? Christmas Day, she was probably sitting around the mansion with her friends and that little prick, Bobby. He could see them all together, curled up in their blankets with hot chocolate, sitting by a Christmas tree decked out with ornaments and lights and tinsel. Someone held a sprig of mistletoe above them, and they leaned in, closer and closer, his lips almost touching hers...

A spew of gravel flew up from the road, pelting Logan in the face. He slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop on the side of the road, gravel spitting everywhere. Shutting off the engine, he sighed and leaned forward, resting his head on the handlebars. He was so distracted thinking about Christmas and Rogue that he hadn't been watching the road.

Jesus, why couldn't he get her out of his mind? Why was he haunting him so much? What was so goddamn important that she kept appearing in his dreams, his thoughts? "What the fuck do you want, kid?" he whispered, his head spinning.

Growling, he reached for the bottle of Jack Daniels in the outside pocket of his bag. He needed to forget, wanted to forget everything. When he grabbed the neck, the bottle slipped from his grasp and before he could react, it fell to the ground. The glass shattered on the pavement; the sound sent a chill up his spine. He'd heard that sound before...

Last night, he realized. Last night, during that dream, the one where he had crashed the car. The windshield had shattered, and the glass had flown into his face. Just thinking about it made him nearly as sick as the Alkali Lake nightmares. The pain and reality of it was just about as intense. His right leg had been crushed, he remembered it being flattened, pinned inside the deadly vehicle as it flipped him around and around.

The awful feeling he woke up with hadn't left him since, no matter how much of good ol' Jack he guzzled. A small voice in the back of his mind whispered to him, telling him that something was wrong. It was familiar, yet it wasn't Logan though, and it certainly wasn't the Wolverine. Still, this was one gut feeling that just wouldn't die. He couldn't drown it, and it wasn't going to be blown away like the dust behind his motorcycle.

_Go back..._the voice whispered. He knew he should, he knew that this would eat away at him until he did. But what would he say? "I swore I wouldn't go back there," Logan said, kicking the broken glass with his boot. "I can't, if I see her again..."

The glass clinked against the gravel, that awful sound. So many years of being consciousless, of not caring what anyone else thought had built up a lot of pride. It should have been such an easy decision to make, and a few years ago, it might have been. Back when she was Rogue, when he was the Wolverine. But then she became Marie, his Marie, and he had transformed into Logan, and suddenly that fine line between protection and something more became blurry. Right and wrong were skewed. Black and white and had suddenly become various shades of gray.

_But what if she really is in danger? _the traitorous voice asked. "If something happens to her, and I don't go back there, I'll never forgive myself..." Logan muttered to himself.

Furious with himself, he violently twisted the key and revved the bike to life. The gravel flew behind him as he peeled out, flying down the highway like a wild animal. The very last thing he wanted to do was in fact, his only choice.

_I've never gone against my instincts before, _Logan rationalized, _and I guess I can't start now._

ï‚˜ï‚™

Everything was dark. Dark and weightless. It wasn't scary though, there was nothing to fear. Literally, nothing. She couldn't feel or see or hear; she was totally deprived of all her senses. Still, she was peaceful. She floated in the darkness, or at least, that's what she thought it might be. She might have been drifting or flying...yeah, that was it. She was flying, she was a graceful bird, going solo in the darkness.

After awhile though, she got worried. She was getting tired, she didn't want to fly anymore. She wanted to land, but all she saw was the darkness. What should she do? She began to panic, until she heard his voice, whispering softly.

"I'm coming. Just say there, wait for me, I'm coming."

Instantly, she was calm. She shut her eyes—or were they shut all along?—and felt went back to drifting, letting the nonexistent wind take her.

He was coming...


	11. Torn

_Torn_

I woke up, but I didn't open my eyes right away. Something was different, I could tell without seeing. It was too cold. I wasn't buried under a mountain of quilts and blankets; the mattress was too stiff to be mine. The room smelled sterile and clean. If that were true, I was definitely not home.

My right foot was numb. As a matter of fact, all of me was numb. My head felt like it was a balloon, floating away from my body, connected only by a piece of string. However, when I tried to lift it from my pillow, something pulled me back down to earth. _Where am I?_ I wondered vaguely.

_Rogue?_

_Ow…_A voice—professor Xavier's, I realized slowly—was thundering inside my head. It felt as though he had taken my balloon string and yanked—_hard_. _Poor balloons, _I thought ridiculously. _Always being pulled down, pushed around. They should stand up for themselves more often._

_Rogue? _Again, that pounding in my head. _Are you awake?_

This time, I thought to verbalize my discomfort. "Ow!" My throat was dry though, and my lips were parched. I swallowed once and tried again. "Shit!" Oh, four letters, I was getting better…

"I'll assume that's a yes." I heard him again, only with my ears this time.

Slowly, I opened my eyes. They felt as though they were being pulled back down again, like blinds being closed against the sun. Everything was a hazy blur; I blinked a few times, and slowly, everything slid into focus.

Professor Xavier sat in front of me, watching with tired eyes. His normally pristine suit was wrinkled, and his forehead creased in places it hadn't before. If he weren't bald, I'd expect a few gray hairs to have appeared. He looked older, more haggard than before. I hadn't seen him this way since Jean died.

I was about to ask what was wrong, when my lethargic brain finally caught up. It took me a few moments to realize where I was. My right leg was in a cast that stopped just past my knee, and it was elevated in a sling suspended from the ceiling. My left arm was heavy, and I looked down to find my wrist wrapped in the same type of white plaster cast as my leg. A small, clear tube went from my elbow to an IV drip above me.

"Professor?" I asked, my voice small. "What happened?"

"You were in a car accident, Rogue," he said gently. I suppose he was trying not to scare me, but I was already scared shitless. Waking up broken and bruised and not knowing where you are will do that. "You might not remember," he continued. "You suffered a fairly serious concussion."

"Concussion?" I repeated, my mind still waking. With my good arm I reached up and gingerly felt the bandage around my forehead. "Professor, I don't even remember getting into a car…"

But even as I said it, my dull mind—which was so slow due to the drugs that must have been flowing through my system, I now realized—clicked on. Pictures came back to me in flashes: my shaky hands scribbling a letter to Professor Xavier, opening the school gates, driving way too fast on the highway, gotta escape, gotta get free…

Suddenly, it was as if someone had taken a sledgehammer and hit me simultaneously in the gut and the head. Slowly I leaned back against the pillow, closing my eyes against the pain, both mental and physical.

"Rogue?"

"I'm okay, professor," I said after a moment, keeping my eyes shut. I didn't want to look at him; I didn't want to see the disappointment and pity in his eyes. "Professor, I'm so sorry," I whispered, feeling a tear squeeze out from between my eyelids and slide down my cheek. The salt burned as it dripped into a shallow cut. "I'm so sorry."

Professor Xavier reached out and placed his hand on my wrist cast. "So am I," he murmured, so quiet I don't think that I was meant to hear. "Rogue, look at me, please," he said gently, but firmly. I did, and I once again the stoic leader that I've always known. "The important thing right now is for you to heal quickly. The sooner Dr. Youngstone releases you, the sooner we can get back to setting things right. For now, I don't want you to worry about anything. All you need to do right now is sleep, do you understand?"

"How long till I can leave?" I asked him, my voice quavering only slightly. Ever since I've shared Logan's nightmares, medical procedures and hospitals have creeped me out. Now, lying here in a hospital wing made me all the more petrified.

"At least a week," he said. Out of habit, I bit my swollen lip, then winced. I took a deep breath, trying to hold back tears of pain and frustration. I wanted nothing more than to get this thing out of my arm, tear the casts off, put on my normal clothes, and run. "I know it will be hard," Professor Xavier said. "But I know that you will get through this, Rogue. Here, I brought you something." He pulled out a pair of my favorite gloves, the black opera ones with a small rose embroidered on the back of the hand. Setting the left one aside, he carefully slid the other onto my arm, carefully avoiding my exposed skin. I wiggled my fingers inside the soft, familiar fabric, my stomach sinking. I was back to being Rogue the Untouchable, swathed in plaster and bandages and fabric.

Suddenly, I felt very tired. Leaning back, I closed my eyes and listened to the steady hum of the heater by my bedside. I was broken, both physically and spiritually. Fate had finally dealt me more than I could handle. _I quit. _My mind was starting to float again, and slowly the weightless feeling returned, and I was lost again in black sleep.

Three days of nearly nonstop riding finally found Logan outside the familiar wrought iron gates of Charles Xavier's school for "gifted" students. Pausing in the driveway, Logan observed the building through the cold black bars, just as he always did when he returned. The piles of snow stood in drifts at least two or three feet high against the tall, redbrick building. Puffs of smoke rose from the various chimneys of the cavernous mansion, and the numerous windows that dotted the school shone with a faint, golden glow in the dusky light of early evening. A feeble looking snowman stood in the distance, its smile a crooked mess of rocks, and its dirty carrot nose dangling haphazardly from the lumpy face.

Just like always, the mansion seemed the portrait of perfection. And, just like always, Logan felt even more out of place. He knew he didn't belong there, and still it drew him back. He flexed his gloved hand, cramped from gripping the handlebars so long, then reached out and pressed a small, black call button mounted on a sliver speakerbox. It buzzed once, and he waited impatiently for a response. For a moment, he didn't hear anything, just the chill winter breeze whistling softly in his ears, teasing his disheveled hair.

"Yes?" Logan jumped, the volume of the speaker startling him. He recognized Ororo's voice, although it sounded crackled and tinny.

"It's Logan," he said, holding down the button.

"Logan?" She was silent for a moment, then replied, "Just a moment, I'll let you in."

Something buzzed, and then the black gate slowly opened. The freshly plowed drive already had a light dusting of snow over it, and Logan carefully rode over the slippery ground, slowly making his way up to the mansion. When he finally reached the door, he left the bike underneath an eve of the house, and shrugged his duffle onto his back. He stood before the door, wondering what he would say when he entered. Would he find Rogue, tell her everything that had gone on in his twisted mind over the past month? Or would he just make sure she was safe, wish her a Merry Christmas, and leave? _God, why the hell am I here in the first place?_ he chastised himself. He felt regret slowly start creeping into his mind, and the thought of turning around and leaving sounded more and more tempting.

Before he could make up his mind though, the door opened, and Ororo stood in the entryway. "Logan," she said, ushering him in with a smile. "Welcome home." She gave him a friendly hug, and shut the door after him.

"Hey Ororo," he said, but something tugged at the back of his mind. Something didn't feel right. She turned around again, and suddenly he noticed it; her smile seemed strained. Her usually warm, caramel skin looked pale, and dark circles had formed under her eyes.

As for the rest of the mansion, it was silent. Usually, students ran around, always getting in the way, talking too loud, arguing, joking, laughing, but today, Logan could hear nothing, even with his advanced senses. It was Christmas vacation; where was everyone?

Suddenly, Logan realized the most obvious change of all. "Ororo? Where's Rogue?"

The woman's smile slowly began to fade, and Logan saw a mix of fear, sadness and anger behind her deep, brown eyes. "Come with me," she said quietly.

Apprehension clouded Logan's mind as he followed Ororo to a small office to the right of the foyer. Shutting the door behind them, she faced him, and this time, her face matched her eyes. "Logan, I…"

"Ororo, what's wrong?"

"Lord, there isn't any easy way to say this…Logan, Rogue's not here."

"What? Where is she?"

"She ran away on Christmas Eve. She took one of the cars, and she…" Ororo took a deep breath to steady herself. "…she was in an accident."

For a moment, he thought he misunderstood. Then, as the reality of the moment sank in, the anxiety he had felt blossomed into anger. "Fuck," Logan whispered. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

"Logan, before you get upset, she is all right. Scott and Xavier are up there right now—"

"Where?" he interrupted.

"Hartford General, in Connecticut."

"How do I get there?"

"Logan—"

"Just tell me how to get there, Ororo," he growled, his voice growing louder now with impatience. He didn't have time to sit here with her and talk. He needed to see Marie, he needed to make sure she was all right. Something inside him began to burn, white hot. All those dreams and nightmares, they all led back to Marie, and now she needed him.

Ororo's voice grew cold. She straightened up, her hands on her slender hips. "Do you even know why she left, Logan? Do you know why she ran away?"

"Jesus, Ororo, I don't have time for this!"

"Oh, yes, you do," she retorted, her voice as chill as the snow outside. "You've got all the time in the world to think about this one, Logan: she left because of you."

"What are you talking about? I haven't even been here for a month!"

"Logan, she looked up to you! She needed you in her life. Scott, Jean, Professor Xavier…none of us could ever relate to her the way you could. She needed you, and you always left her alone."

"What do you mean 'alone'?" Logan shouted, all patience having flown out the window. "She had all of you. And besides, I'm not some goddamn councilor! I don't even remember what it was like to be a fuckin' teen! It's not my fault she decided to look up to me, but just because she did doesn't mean shit."

Ororo glared at him, her piecing eyes cutting him like a knife. "Logan, she didn't need advice, she just needed a shoulder to lean on! You were so busy looking for your past, you couldn't see what was right here in front of you, right now. Rogue's grown up, Logan, and you missed it because you're so wrapped up in yourself!"

"This is not my fault, Ororo! Don't try to fuckin' pin it on me just because you and the rest of the damn superteam couldn't handle one kid!"

"You don't believe me? Take I91 to exit 25. Follow the hospital signs from there, and ask her yourself." And before either of them could say anything more, Ororo brushed past him, slamming the door behind her.

Logan slammed his fist into the desk, letting out a cry of rage. The room shook as he did. _This is not my fault!_ he thought angrily. He didn't have time for this, he had to go, he needed to make sure that Marie was safe. He strode out of the office, through the foyer, and out the front door, never encountering a soul. The entire school was hiding somewhere, most likely talking about his Marie. Mounting the motorcycle, he roared the engine to life, this time not giving a damn about the ice, and half drove, half slid down the long drive and back onto the main road.

"Hold on, kid," he whispered. "I'm coming."

Inside room 112 of the Hartford Holiday Inn, Scott lay on one of the beds, curtains drawn and the "Do Not Disturb" sign firmly affixed to the door. For the past three days, he and Charles had been taking shifts at the hospital during visiting hours, and now, he took the opportunity to catch up on some much needed sleep. The stress of the whole situation had caused blissfully dreamless rest, and so when his cell phone began to vibrate on the bedside table, he understandably didn't wake. If he had, he would have seen the caller ID flashing "Ororo", and that he had a voice message marked "Urgent".

A lot of weaving in and out of traffic at dangerously high speeds finally got me to the Hartford General Hospital parking garage in record time, two hours. I had to admit, the moment I entered, I thought I was going to be sick; for obvious reasons, anything to do with medical procedures and hospitals doesn't sit too well with me. As I approached the desk, a doctor in a white lab coat and mask walked by, and I nearly lost it. It was like walking back through time, only in a more public setting.

"May I help you, sir?" the woman at the desk asked.

"Yeah, I—"

"Logan."

I turned, and out of nowhere, Charles was in front of me.

"Good to see you," he said warmly, but his eyes were cold. "Come with me."

I nodded. "Never mind," I said to the woman, who was already back to sorting paperwork.

I followed Charles down a series of hallways until we reached an elevator. A silence hung in the air, and I tried to catch his eye, but he stared fixatedly ahead as the door slid open. I didn't understand, why was everyone so damn pissed at me? _It's not my fault, _I reassured myself as I stepped inside the elevator.

"You knew I was coming, didn't you?" I said, staring at my ragged reflection in the steel door as we slowly rose up to the fifth floor.

Xavier nodded. "I assumed you would," he replied evenly. He didn't sound angry, but then again, Charles always sounded cool, calm. "Once you arrived, I knew for sure." He tapped his temple, but by this time I was used to his telepathy and the fact that he knew just about everything.

I nodded. "How is she?" I asked, not sure I wanted the answer.

"She's doing well," he answered. "She suffered a bit of shock when she realized what had happened, where she was…remnants of your nightmares, I believe." So she felt it, too. "She's broken her wrist and shattered her leg, but most of her bruises and cuts have calmed down."

The elevator beeped, and the door slid open to the fifth floor. A sign hanging from the ceiling read "Intensive Care Unit". My stomach began to twist; why was she in the ICU for a broken leg and a broken wrist? We continued down the hall for a while, but instead of stopping at a room, we went into a small waiting area.

"Logan, before you see Rogue, you need to know a few things," he said, meeting my eyes for the first time.

"Like what?" I asked, immediately on the defensive. "That I was the reason she ran away? That she's laid up in the ICU because of me? Don't worry, Ororo already filled me in on that," I spat, still bitter for the way she acted. After all, I'd never seen Ororo so furious before, and certainly not with me. Marie was in a car accident, for the love of God, and she felt that then was a good time to start lecturing me on how to be a role model?

"Logan, calm down," Charles said. "While I will say you are not guiltless, you are not the only reason Rogue ran away. I assume most of the blame. I should have seen this coming, but I foolishly took it as normal teenage dramatics. By the time I realized what was truly wrong, I fear I was too late.

"What I wanted to tell you is that Rogue is highly unstable mentally now," he continued.

"What are you talking about?" I asked. "Is she crazy or something?"

"No, but very depressed. We spoke, but she doesn't open up to me like she used to, nor with Scott. In some respects, I'm glad you're here. I'm hoping maybe she'll talk to you. From what I know of her situation and yours, you both need to talk, before one of you up and runs again."

I let that last comment slide over me, only because the sooner he made his point, the sooner I could see Marie. Unfortunately, Xavier often took forever to make a point.

"You asked me if it was your fault," he continued. As he spoke, he reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a piece of notebook paper, folded in thirds and already well worn. "Rogue wrote this before she left, and I think it will provide you with more answers than I can offer."

He handed over the letter. I took it, but instead of reading it, I tucked it into my jeans pocket for later. I didn't have time to worry about guilt right now. I just needed to see her.

"I got it, Charles," I said, a bit forcefully. "Right now, I just want to make sure she's all right."

I could tell he was disappointed in me, but frankly I couldn't give a damn at the moment. He led me down one more hallway, until we stopped in front of room number 542. "I'll leave you two alone," he said as he opened the door. "Logan…" he trailed off. He wanted to say more, I could see it in those weary eyes of his, but all he said was, "Good luck."

I stepped around a small drape that divided the room into two and saw my Marie, lying in bed, sleeping. My stomach dropped when I saw bruises, the cuts, the casts, the bandages. Her breathing was slightly off, and I could tell she had broken some ribs. I had seen her like this before, battered and cut, in so many of my nightmares. I felt a cold wave of deja-vu wash over me, and I though for a moment I might be sick. Then, something else began pulsing through my veins, white hot and burning; suddenly I was furious, with me, with her. How could I have let this happen? Why did this happen to her, to my Marie, my innocent Marie? Why the hell did she go and do this to herself?

"Marie?" I said softly, my voice low. "Marie, you awake?"

She began to stir ever so slightly. Her eyelids fluttered open, and she stared at me for a moment. "Logan?" she whispered, her throat dry. She swallowed once, then blinked several times, as if trying to clear her vision. "Logan?"

Suddenly, a wave of emotions swept over me. It was a strange heat, and a desperate warning began to ring in my ears. _I don't, I can't…. Get out of here, Logan! Get out, get out, leave…escape, escape. I can't…I don't…I won't… "Fuck her for this…" "I hope I never see her face again…" "I can't go back…" _

"Marie, I…" My mouth had suddenly gone dry. I didn't know what to say, what to do. _Fuck…_I thought. _Fuck…_


	12. Encounters of a New Kind

_Encounters of New Kind_

"Logan?"

I squinted at this hazy apparition in front of me, trying to clear my mind. I blinked several times; the man took on shape, detail, depth. He looked like Logan, and my heart rose in my throat. A million emotions overcame me at once: fear, anger, hatred, confusion, sadness, resentment, and they all fought to be first in my mind. _No,_ I tried to reason with myself. _He swore he wasn't coming back. He hates me, he swore he wasn't coming back…_.

But I was wrong. "Hey, kid," he said softly. His voice, low, gravely, smooth and soothing now, but ferocious and terrifying at times. Logan stood at the foot of the bed, every inch of him real. What do you say at a moment like this? What do you tell someone who walked out of your life for good when they suddenly appear at your bedside?

It was quiet for a few moments. One of those awkward silences in which neither person knows what to say, yet so much needs to be said. I realized heavily that, though he had been thousands of miles away, I had never felt farther from him than at this moment. He didn't look at me, although I stared at him with confusion in my heart. He still looked the same: windblown brown hair from never wearing a helmet, sideburns, a permanent five o'clock shadow. He still wore his leather motorcycle jacket, the gloves peaking out of a pocket. Jeans, flannel shirt, boots, it was all undeniably Logan, and yet something seemed wrong. Not only did he not look at me, he wouldn't. Something behind those hidden eyes refused to reveal itself.

Suddenly, I felt a stab of pain in my stomach. He wouldn't look at me, didn't even want to see me. I just wanted to look into those eyes again, as if nothing had changed, but I knew that nothing was the same between us anymore. Something had happened to him in Mexico, and whatever it was, I didn't like it.

_Look at me, Logan, _I wanted to scream. Instead I said, "Why are you here?" I couldn't stop some of the hurt I felt inside from creeping into my voice. It came out more as an accusation than a question.

Caught off guard, his eyes flashed up for the first time. For a moment, I saw a hint of the man I knew, as he defensively said, "Why do you think I'm here?" As if it were obvious, as if I shouldn't ask such stupid questions, as if I were just a dumb little girl…

But it wasn't obvious, and as soon as I looked into his eyes, the color of deep, warm hazelnut, I saw that he didn't know why he was here either. And just like that, the wall between us grew higher. "I don't know," I said quietly. "And neither do you."

"I'm here because I wanted to make sure you were all right, Marie," he said, his tone slightly annoyed.

I chose my words carefully; I needed him here. My heart ached in my chest. "Well, what do you think?"

He opened his mouth once, then shut it. The silence that followed said it all: he didn't even want to look at me again; instead, he stared out the window, the snow falling gently down in small flurries.

Why wouldn't he talk to me? What happened to the Logan I knew from a few months ago, my Logan? Then again, I realized, he most likely thought the same about me; I wasn't the Marie he knew before either. We had both changed, though for good or bad, I couldn't say, and that frightened us both. Suddenly I was overwhelmed with confusion and anger.

"I read it, Logan," I whispered, hot angry tears springing to my eyes. They hovered on my lashes, but I blinked them back. I wouldn't cry in front of him, not this time. "I read it all, over and over again. I could probably recite it to you, if you want, but I doubt you do."

He stayed silent, staring out the window. I went on. "I don't understand," I whispered. "I don't understand why I hurt you so much. What did I do?"

"You didn't do anything, kid," he replied.

But he still wouldn't look at me, and I didn't believe him for a moment. "Logan…" I began.

"I was drunk, Marie," he interrupted. "I wrote a lot of shit, a lot of stuff that shouldn't have been said."

"But was it true?" I asked.

He let out a long sigh. "Look, kid…"

But this time it was my turn to interrupt him. Something inside me began to give way. "Logan, don't lie to me! For the love of God, I'm not a little girl anymore, stop sugar coating everything. Whether you were wasted or sober, should have said it or not, you did, and I want to know if you meant it."

He whirled around to face me, and I knew the answer before he even said it. "Every damn word," he responded. His voice chilled me, and I could see the pain in his eyes for the first time, clouded with confusion and anger. "The good, the bad, all of it. And as for why I came back, I don't have a clue. But here I am, and doing the very last thing I wanted to ever do: see you again."

I sat in a stunned silence. His words cut at my heart; each syllable slapped me in the face. The tears had vanished, and now a cold numbness gripped my insides. Slowly, realization dawned on me.

"All those times you left, all those times you promised you'd come back…" I spoke slowly, my clouded mind trying to sort through the tidal wave of emotions. "I should have known you were just lying to get away. You couldn't have what you wanted, and you didn't want what you could have, so you left."

"I left to try and figure out who the hell I was, Marie," he replied, his voice terse. I could tell that he was trying very hard to control his temper. I hoped he'd explode from the effort. "You knew that, you fuckin' knew that, so don't try to tell me what I thought or why I did what did."

"And after Stryker? After that, why'd you leave? You didn't tell me anything; all you did was shut me out of your life." My temper rose, and I suddenly wanted to push all his buttons, to see how long it took to push him over the edge. The Wolverine didn't scare me; nothing about him scared me anymore.

"You wouldn't understand, kid," he said, jumping up and pacing around at the foot of the bed. "You're too young…"

"Fuck you!" I jumped on his words, grabbing them and shredding them to pieces. "I'm not too young, you're just too damn scared to open up to anyone. Look out for yourself, and fuck the rest of the world, right?"

"What the hell is wrong with you, Marie?" he exploded.

"Nothing's wrong with me, Logan," I replied with a spiteful grin. "I'm just finally seeing you for who you are: a self-absorbed, lying ass who alienates anyone who tries to show him another side of himself."

"Better than being some whiny little teenager who thinks she's going to get whatever she wants if she throws a temper tantrum. You wanna know why I wasn't coming back? Because I promised that I would protect you, Marie," he said, his voice tense. "But I couldn't protect you from myself."

"I never needed to be protected, Logan!" I said, exasperated. "That was never the problem!"

"Then what was?" he asked, glaring at me from the window.

"The problem was that you could never get it through your thick head that I'm not that little girl you picked up on the side of the road anymore!" I was yelling now. I was so sick of his egocentric attitude, his self-centeredness.

"That's what you keep telling me, Marie," he shouted, matching my fierceness with his own. "But then you go around and turn it into a screaming match. If you are so freakin' high and mighty, so grown up, then why are you acting like a kid?"

"Oh, you're one to talk about high and mighty!" I snapped back. "You come and go whenever you want. You think you're so damn perfect, that you can take care of yourself without anyone else."

"Well, I've done a pretty damn good job so far!" he snarled.

"Oh yeah, Logan, you've done real well. For the past fifteen years, you've been drifting around North America getting drunk, fighting for money, and paying sluts to screw you! Aren't you living the good life!" I bit back angrily.

"Who's in the hospital, Marie? You were only on your own for a few fuckin' hours, and you nearly killed yourself!"

"I've been on my own for a long time now, Logan," I bit back coldly. "And I've got you to that for that, don't I?"

"Because living in a goddamn mansion with all your little friends and that prick of a boyfriend is the worst thing that can happen to you! You don't have a clue what the real world is like, kid," he replied, his voice steely.

"Then why'd you leave, if Xavier's was such a great place, huh Logan?"

"What was I supposed to stay for? Become a teacher? Join the X-men and fight evil and save the world? That's not my style, kid, and you know it. I didn't need to stay, and there wasn't any reason to come back."

"We never meant anything to you, then?"

"Maybe you thought we were some tragic, fucked up little family, but if you thought I wanted to join in, you counted on the wrong guy."

"We were always there for you, Logan," I reminded him. "I was always there. You could have had everything I did, but you had your head too far up your ass to see it!"

"You people aren't my family, you're a group of unwanted sideshow freaks that think you can save the fucking world and get people to accept you. You're all in denial about reality."

"And running or drinking away your problems is a totally realistic way to handle them. At least we know what we want out of life; you're the one who doesn't have a clue!"

"So why'd you leave, if everything you wanted in life was right there at your fingertips, _kid_?" he challenged.

"Because I didn't have the one thing I wanted, Logan! I wanted you!"

A silence fell over the room, the words looming over us, weighing heavily over our heads. I had both surprised and scared myself; I always I knew I wanted Logan to be with me. I had needed him, I had even loved him at one point, but I'd never told him before. The thought of losing him forever always kept me silent. Now though, I suppose I'd already lost him, so there wasn't any point in keeping quiet any longer.

"I loved you, Logan," I continued quietly, locking my eyes with his. Each word I spoke was emotionless; I loved him then, but not now. Bridges burnt, I told him what I had longed to say for years. "I loved you, and you knew it, and you were scared, scared of me, of yourself."

"I _don't_ love you, Marie," he growled threateningly.

"Don't or can't?" I challenged.

"Don't! Never have, never will. Goddamn, you just don't get it, do you? You-are-a-kid! A little innocent girl, and you think you know what you're feeling, but you don't have any idea! Get over it Marie, go back to Xavier's, get on with your life, and stop obsessing over me. Get the hell out of whatever fantasy world you've been living in, and…"

Just then, the door flew open. A doctor strode in, her white lab cost billowing out behind her. "What on earth is going on in here?" she demanded. "I could hear yelling all the way down the hall. This is a hospital, people are sleeping!" Her eyes flashed from Logan to me. I tried to imagine how the situation looked to her. He stood at the window, livid, fists clenched, claws ready to fly. His eyes burned with fury. I was dizzy and lightheaded, and my face was flushed; the woman in front of me fell in and out of focus. "I think you need to leave, sir," she suggested pointedly, arms crossed.

He seemed to hesitate, then his face turned stony. He cast a final glare in my direction, and as he followed the doctor out of the room, I whispered, so quietly that only I could hear, "I hate you." For the first time, I truly knew what I was feeling: anger, betrayal, and an icy hatred that hardened my already scarred heart. Leaning back, I shut my eyes against the hot tears, and I suddenly felt a wave of frigid cold wash over me. "I hate you," I repeated. "Fuck you, I hate you, fuck you…"

˜™

Ten minutes later, I left the hospital (escorted by the annoyed doctor) and was driving over the icy pavement. I went around block after block, up and down the same streets, listening only to the roar of the engine as it revved to life. Still, no matter how much noise I made, I could still hear Marie's voice as I left her room. "I hate you, fuck you, I hate you…" She had forgotten about my freakishly acute hearing abilities; I heard every word she said. Or, I realized angrily, she had wanted me to hear her. She knew exactly what she was doing when she whispered those words.

Ordinarily, riding would soothe my mind, drown out whatever thoughts might be bothering me, but after three days, it was quickly becoming more of a pain in the ass—both figuratively and literally. I made a sharp right turn, and a few miles later, I stopped outside of a local park. Parking the motorcycle, I shut down the engine and dismounted. I began to wander around the snow-covered, vacant grounds aimlessly, my mind racing.

What in the hell happened? What had happened to my Marie, the kid, the girl? Where was the scared, frightened child I picked up in Canada, the one I promised to protect? I could still see her perfectly: a round, soft face, still a baby, and wide, scared brown eyes. Her hair didn't have the white streaks in it then, it was still a soft, fawn brown, and it hid her face from the world. She covered her body in fabric, the capes, the hoods, the gloves and scarves and socks and turtlenecks. I wasn't sure if she had a figure yet (no one could under all those tents), but I doubted it. She didn't have the common sense not to trust a random man she found in a bar. Had it been anyone else, a man could have kidnapped her, robbed her, raped her, even killed her. But no, she picked the Wolverine, and slowly, she met Logan.

I never did understand what awoke the fierce protectiveness inside of me, and I doubted I ever would. It might have been those trusting eyes, those frightened hands jerking away from me, or the way she inhaled the jerky I gave her in the car. We both were runners; that might have been it. It might have been that we both looked at our mutations as curses rather than gifts, as so many at Xavier's did. She couldn't control hers, and neither could I. The claws and the adamantium weren't the mutation, I knew, they were a science experiment; it was the healing factor that doomed me to eternal life. Whatever the reason, I was willing to die for her once.

And now? Who was this person that I saw lying in that hospital bed? When I entered and saw her, I couldn't even look again. Marie wouldn't have done something that stupid, that thickheaded. A broken leg and arm, bruises all over her face. She was smarter than all that. There was another reason I couldn't look into those eyes again, although it was like a knife in the heart to admit it. I wasn't sure what I would see there. I avoided her during the whole Stryker thing as best I could; even then, I could see it, a depth, a new, unseen element that both made me want to understand and to get away. As I looked at her now, it was as if that portal had frozen over with anger and hatred, and as much as I hated myself for it, I knew that it was my fault.

I suddenly felt very tired; three days of no sleep had taken its toll. Sighing, I sat down on a cold park bench and tucked my hands into my pockets. Something poked my cold bare hand, and I pulled the object out curiously. It was the piece of paper Xavier had given me, the letter she'd written. Slowly, apprehensively, I unfolded it and began to read.

At first, it didn't seem to have anything to do with me. But then, as I went on, my eyes grew wide. "Holy shit…" I whispered. Passages jumped out at me: "I _loved_ you." "You wanted the woman, not the girl." "You still saw me… as your 'sweet, innocent Marie.'" "…you were—_are_—deaf."

I read it again and again, not daring to believe what I saw. It started out formally, but then, at the end, she was spiteful, hateful. Over and over again, she said that she was no longer a child, but that wasn't what caught my eyes. The phrase that stuck with me was this: "I smiled, I nodded, I waved, but inside my heart was breaking. Inside I was crying, begging you to stay with me, don't leave me again, please. But you did, and you didn't look back, not once."

"Fuck!" I whispered. I set the letter down next to me on the bench and leaned back, my face turned up to the sky, my eyes closed. I had fucked up. Somewhere along the line, I had fucked up big time. She thought that I didn't even care anymore, that I didn't care about her. I wasn't stupid; I could read between the lines. I made her leave, by example if nothing else. How many times had I left her alone, alone in that freak house? Christ, I was one son of a bitch to make so many promises and then lie my way out of them. She always forgave me though, I justified. Or did she? If she did, she wouldn't be laid up in some hospital right now, and I wouldn't be freezing my ass off in some goddamn park in the middle of Connecticut!

Her words cut deeper than anything else, deeper than any scalpel or adamantium ever could. Why did it bother me so much? Why did I care that she thought I was a lying, arrogant bastard that couldn't give a damn about anyone but myself? If it had been anyone else, I would have told them to fuck off and that would have been the end of it, but with Marie, it was different. I wanted Marie to want me, I needed her to want me. She opened up a side of me that I thought was dead, the side that wanted to care, to be there, and that side scared me, so I hid it. I couldn't let Marie know that I wanted her, that I…

Suddenly, it hit me like a sucker punch from behind. I loved her. I loved her so badly that, thousands of miles away, my mind was telling me, not that she needed me, but that I needed her. I was so blind that I couldn't see she had grown into a woman, a beautiful, gorgeous, independent, fierce, sexy woman. We both loved each other, but I refused to acknowledge the fact that I did. I ran, I lied, I shut her out, I drank, I did anything to suppress the hunger inside of me.

I only came back when I realized that I might lose her forever. And now, it looked like I had, even though she was still alive. She hated me, she never wanted to see me again. Before that's what I would have wanted, but now…now I had a choice to make. I could swallow my pride, go back, tell her what I had known all along, and then watch her fall apart before my eyes, or I could get on that motorcycle and go. I would leave her, hating me, wishing I was dead, and she would move on with her life, although I doubted I ever would.

The wind blew through the naked branches of the tree above me, whistling softly. Snow fell in slightly heavier drifts now. I absentmindedly rubbed the spaces between my right knuckles with my left fingers. I could feel the sharp points of my claws against my skin, waiting to fly out, to slice, to kill. Those claws were the warrior inside of me, the fighter, the Wolverine. I was a natural born fighter, looking out for me and me alone. Self-preservation at all costs. Survival of the fittest, the strongest.

But it wasn't going to end this way between us. It won't end the way I want it to, but I've always fought for what I wanted, and I've never wanted anything this badly before.


	13. Medicine

_Medicine_

For the first time in a long while, I had a reason to fight for something. Now I had to fight for Marie because she couldn't fight for herself. The automatic doors of the E.R. slid open, like a wide, gaping mouth. There was still time to turn back, to forget all the idealistic bullshit that had crossed my mind these past few hours. There was still time to return to the Wolverine.

The doors shut behind me, and I struggled to quash the paranoia that had arisen in the pit of my stomach. I hate hospitals, always have, always will. Above the entry to the hall, the clock read 8:00p.m. Visiting hours ended at nine. I didn't have a whole lot of time.

Following the same route as before, I headed up the elevator and down the hall. With each step, I could feel weight being added onto my shoulders. Was I doing the right thing? Was this wrong? Was I really just some sick fucker with a thing for teen girls? Fuck…

God, I needed a beer.

I turned the final corner into the ICU hall but was stopped by the very last person I wanted to see at that moment. Scott stood in front of me, arms crossed over his chest. _Great_, I thought. Scott and I had never liked each other; I'd always thought he was a cocky son of a bitch who was just asking for someone to beat the shit out of him. What Jean saw in him, I'll never understand. As long as I'd known him, he'd always stood between me and what I wanted, and now, here he was, doing the same thing all over again.

"You got a lot of nerve coming back here," he said, his voice cold.

"Get out of my way, Scott," I growled.

He didn't move. "What are you going to do, Logan? What are you going to tell her that won't make things worse?"

"I said get out of my way." My fists and jaw were clenched. I could feel the rage building inside me. Any second now, I was going to beat the shit out of this prick.

"She hasn't said a word since you came. I don't know what the hell you did to her, but I know that she doesn't need you fucking up her life anymore than you already have," he hissed accusingly.

I stepped towards him, till he was only inches from me. I was a good five inches taller than him, but he still stared me down from behind those rose lenses of his. I could feel his warm breath on my face; I could smell him: a mixture of generic hotel soap and some expensive cologne. Who the hell did he think he was? "I got no problem hitting a man with glasses, especially if he's an arrogant dumbshit like you. Now I'm gonna tell you one more time…" My claws slid out in between us, as if slicing the tension. "Get the fuck out of my way."

"You think I'm afraid of you, Logan?" he asked, cocking his head to one side. "What's your plan? Start a fight in the middle of a hospital, and let the whole world know she's a mutant? You may have the muscle Logan, but you aren't too smart."

Plans…God, damn Scott and his fuckin' plans! Cyclops led the X-men, Cyclops gave the orders, but Scott didn't. "You little asswipe," I growled, grabbing him by the collar. I slammed him against the wall, pinning him like a bug on a windshield. Behind those glasses, I could see his eyes grow wide. "You may be the leader of the X-men, One-Eye, but you ain't tellin' me what the hell to do. It's my goddamn life, and if you wanna keep yours, you better… "

"Logan!" Xavier's voice cut through the hall like a knife. "That is enough!"

I turned, but kept Scott against the wall. _Jesus Christ, why can't he just leave me alone?_ Charles sat in the hall, his eyes on fire. I had never seen him quite this pissed before, but frankly I didn't give a damn. The whole world was against me at this point, what difference did one more make? "Fuck you, Charles!"

"Logan, do not do this here, not in a public place. You are not only jeopardizing yourself, but also Rogue. Do you want to endanger her life further?"

With a snarl, I tore Scott from the wall and threw him down the hall towards Xavier. I was breathing heavily, rage taking over. Scott was bent over, coughing and gasping for air. Xavier fixed me with a cold stare.

"Logan," he began, but I didn't want to listen. I was so sick of listening to everyone; for once I wanted to hear myself.

"Don't start, Charles," I growled. "For the love of God, spare me the lecture. I need to see Marie, and you and your little lapdog ain't gonna stop me, so just get out of my way."

"Like hell," Scott whispered hoarsely, hand moving towards his glasses.

"Scott!" Suddenly, his arm froze, as if grasped by an unseen hand. Xavier didn't use his telepathy against his team often, and Logan could see the embarrassment and fury on Scott's face. "That is _enough_!" Xavier repeated, an icy chill to his voice. "I hardly need to remind the two of you that you are men, not animals! Primal instincts aside, this is neither the time nor the place."

"Charles…" Scott protested, but was cut down with a piecing glare. There was silence between them for a moment; I could tell a serious mental argument was brewing in Scott's mind. Suddenly, he looked as though he'd just been slapped. Clenching his jaw, Scott stood straight, fists at his sides. "Fine then. But I warned you." Turning, he stormed down the hall, down towards the elevator.

Xavier turned and faced me. "Marie is hardly in a position to see anyone right now, Logan. She has not spoken to either myself or Scott since we arrived, so unless you have a very good reason as to why you should be allowed in that room, I suggest you leave now before more irreparable psychological damage is done."

_Shit,_ I thought. I didn't know what to say. There was too much, and even if I knew what the hell I was feeling, Xavier sure as hell wasn't going to let me in there, not after how that last episode ended. Still, I had come too far to give up now.

We waited in silence, Charles waiting and me coming up with a whole lot of nothing. Then I began to feel a gently push inside my mind, like someone was shoving aside all the anger and rage I had just felt to expose those new, raw emotions I discovered. Charles face never wavered from his stoic mask of no emotions, but I still felt him inside my mind, looking for answers that I didn't understand.

His eyes refocused suddenly, and I realized he was looking not inside me now, but at me. "Visiting hours end in ten minutes," he said quietly, and without another word, he turned his wheelchair and rolled down the hall, never once looking back. I stood and watched him leave, unsure of whether or not to be pissed because he had gone in my head without my permission, or grateful because I was going to see Rogue after all.

"Fuck it," I whispered, not knowing what else to say. Turning towards room 542, I placed my hand on the doorknob. Again, that same warning arose in the pit of my stomach, telling me to get out while I still could.

Before I could stop myself, I opened the door and stepped inside, shutting it silently behind me.



It was nighttime, but the harsh glow of the city lights peered in cruelly from between the blinds. I wanted to shut them, but I was stuck in that damn bed, my leg dangling uselessly from the sling. Shutting my eyes, I tried to sleep, but my head was throbbing painfully. Memories of the day flew like ghosts in and out of my mind, caught in the sticky webbing, forcing me to recall them over and over.

Professor Xavier came in an hour or so ago, along with Scott. They tried to talk to me, prying into my life, trying to "help me understand" what was going on, but I didn't want to hear it. Since my unexpected conversation with Logan, my heart was frozen, and now I saw them not as guardians and mentors, but as two grown men who had nothing better to do than try to psychoanalyze me. Didn't they have the world to save, other mutants to protect? Why the hell were they still here, watching over me like mother hens?

I sat in a stony silence as they spoke. I wanted them to leave, I wanted everyone to leave me alone. I have no family anymore, not biological or my mutated one, despite what they may say, and the only person who I thought understood who I was has officially washed his hands of me.

_Logan…_ I tried to summon up anger at the thought, but my body was just too tired. My head still pounded furiously. Breathing deeply, I felt the drugs take hold and I slipped into a deep sleep…

I stood inside that same sticky, black web of pain that had engulfed me, screaming. My hair flew about my face wildly, my eyes burned, and from my mouth echoed the most gut-wrenching shrieks of fury I had ever heard. My fists and hands flew as the thin, thread-like tendrils of web reached out, snaking around my arms, legs, torso, neck. I fought and fought, but they ensnared me until I was wrapped like a mummy in tight strings from my neck down. I cried out louder and louder; I could feel them crush me like an anaconda squeezing the life from its prey. I was crying, praying, begging for mercy, deliverance, anything that would relieve this pain as I fought endlessly with the web.

I grew tired, and slowly, my struggle ceased. Choking back tears, I forced myself to look at logic. I had to give up, there was no point in fighting anymore. I had to surrender to the web, surrender to death. Carefully, I relaxed my muscles and let the web travel up my neck and over my head, cutting off my air. Trapped in this cocoon, slowly suffocating, I felt an odd sense of calm. I wasn't sad or happy, scared or courageous. I simply admitted defeat.

_I give up,_ I thought, and then I lost consciousness for the last time.

_Thump!_ The sound shattered my dream, jolting me back to reality. What the hell was that? I woke up, listening again for the noise. At first I heard nothing, and then the sounds of muffled voices made their way to my ears. There were two men, maybe three, arguing out in the hallway. I rubbed my eyes with my good hand, trying to focus on the digital clock next to my bed: 8:50 p.m. I had only been asleep for maybe a half hour. My headache still raged on, and I groaned in frustration. The voices outside continued to argue, although I had no idea who they were, or what they were complaining about. I debated on whether or not to call the nurse.

Abruptly, they stopped, and once again it was silent. Before I could go back to sleep though, I heard the door to my room open, and from behind the curtain, Logan stepped in front of the bed. His face was striped with light from the window, casting diagonal shadows over his eyes and giving him a mysterious and slightly dangerous look.

We watched each other for a moment. Something was wrong, but I couldn't tell what. His eyes were hidden; what he really felt was hidden from me, just like always.

"I'm sorry, Marie," he said quietly, his voice low and gravelly. That tone had always melted my insides before, but now my heart stayed frozen.

He took a step towards me, his face still obscured by shadows. "I'm sorry for everything."

It wasn't fair. I wanted to tell him how much I hated him, how I hoped he would burn in hell. I didn't need him, I didn't want him, not anymore, not after how much he hurt me. However, before I could get the words out, he took three steps to my bedside and swallowed my protests with his mouth.

For a few surreal moments, I savored his kiss, gentle but firm. I could taste him, sweet cigars, whiskey, long dusty roads, the drunken sunsets, the bloody nights, the regretful dawns…in a word, Logan. And I found myself kissing him back. My gloved arm slid up around his neck, pulling him towards me, begging for more. His hand cradled my head gently, lifting me up to him, being careful not to disturb the bandage wrapped around my forehead.

It lasted forever, that beautiful kiss, until all too soon, I felt the pull. My own body began to revolt against me, sucking his powers like a vacuum. I didn't want to let go; I didn't want to lose this feeling. The temptation to abandon reason grew stronger and stronger, until suddenly I pushed him away with a cry.

Logan stumbled backwards, collapsing in a chair next to the bed. He sat in a daze for a moment, and I realized that the pounding in my head had ceased. He rested his head in his hands, breathing heavily. Seeing what I had done, my mind began to race. _Untouchable, unwanted, unlovable. _"Logan?" I whispered. _Untouchable. Unwanted. Unlovable._

"It's okay, Marie," he replied, his voice thick. "It's all right."

Slowly, he sat up and for the first time, I saw his eyes. Their warm brown depths spoke volumes, but they all said the same thing. "You were right," he said simply.

Confusion flooded over me, and I shut my eyes tight against the bombardment of emotions. Inside that cocoon, that deceptive web, I was feeling something that I'd never felt before, but the anger, betrayal, and hatred that wrapped around me continued to stifle it. Still, I could feel something new, something powerful burning inside.

"I love you, Marie," he whispered.

That did it. I looked into those eyes, and I saw a man, not a monster, not a Wolverine. I didn't see protection or safety or defense; instead I saw swallowed pride, reckless abandon, and submission. Most of all though, I swear I saw love in a raw form, a newborn that he had only just come to accept, let alone understand. Did he understand?

"How?" I whispered, my voice hoarse, choking back tears. "How can you love what you can't feel? How can you love a frozen soul?"

"I don't know how," he admitted, reaching out and brushing a lock of hair from my eyes. "I just know that I do."

Hearing those words, I felt a tear escape its prison and tumble down my cheek, and with it, the cocoon began to loosen. I felt the heat now, pulsating again inside, a steady heartbeat. Reaching up, I grasped his hand in mine, feeling the warmth of his palm through my glove. In the silence that hovered between us, I could feel his pulse in time with my own, and for the first time I didn't feel so alone.

This time, I pulled him towards me, and he slid the chair closer to the bed. Dipping his head down, I stroked his face, feeling the angles of his jaw, his cheekbones, his nose, the curves of his eyes under the closed lids. My fingers traced over the lips, exploring him as seeing him for the first time.

And suddenly I knew: this was _right_. He saw the realization spark in my eyes, and he leaned in again for another kiss. I was swept away in a rush of new emotions, and the heat inside me grew stronger and stronger, burning away the webs, the shadows, the pain. His kiss was medicine, healing not just my physical wounds, but slowly ebbing the mental and emotional ones as well.

I was finally home.


	14. Epilogue: Postmortem

_Epilogue: Postmortem_

The highway lay in front of us, a gray band sprawled out over a white landscape, twisting and turning out of sight. We were the only car on the road this early in the morning, and over Logan's shoulder, I could see the sun coming up through the driver's side window. Pale pink and yellow, it glared blindingly off the snow. It seemed fragile, like a newborn just opening its eyes, and yet it was determined to survive the harsh environment it emerged into.

I sat up, my neck sore from falling asleep against the door of the truck. "Mornin'" I mumbled, rolling my head side to side.

"How you feelin'?" he asked, eyes watching the road.

"All right," I replied. Stretching my arms forward in front my, I felt my back pop. "How long have I been out?"

"Right after we crossed the state line," he answered.

The silence hung between us, a bit awkward at first, but neither of us had ever been extremely chatty. There was no need for words right now.

My mind drifted back to the previous night, and all that had taken place. The blackness and ice I felt inside was melting now, slowly being replaced by soothing, contented warmth. Each little touch of his rough fingertips on my skin, the brush of his surprisingly soft lips, ever so gently on my own, sent a spark running through me. In no time, my leg and arm were healed entirely, and with a surgeon's skill and a lover's touch, Logan meticulously cut away my plaster casts and helped my stand. Once I was used to walking again, I found a pair of my jeans and a sweatshirt that Xavier had brought me from the mansion, and, slipping them on, the two of us walked out of the hospital, ignoring the security cameras that spied upon them as us went. If they wanted to watch, then let them watch. Logan and I had nothing to hide, not anymore.

Once outside of the city, I waited in a gas station until he returned with an old F-150 with a full tank of gas. He told me he "found" the truck, although he wouldn't tell me where. I did notice that the motorcycle was gone though, and Logan had a rather large wad of twenties in his pocket. It didn't matter to me though, where he got what or where he'd been. We were together now, and together we drove south, never once looking back.

Did we do the right thing? I wondered. Running from our problems…we were both good at that. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized we weren't running away, so much as blindly sprinting forward. I smiled a bit at the thought, the two of us charging forward, full speed ahead, with our eyes seeing only each other.

The silence stretched on, not as uncomfortable anymore so much as contemplative. He was thinking too, although what, I wasn't sure. I watched his profile against the rising sun, the furrowed brow, the hard lines of worry etched in his face. Logan would always be something of a mystery to me, but little by little I would learn who he was, and through him, who I was as well.

It wasn't perfect, I thought. Not yet. But then again, nothing is ever perfect. We will always want something more, something we can't have. There's no such thing as perfect, but, as I stretched the taut muscles of my newly healed leg, I was happy at this moment, and that was all that mattered.

I broke the silence first. "Where're we going?"

He shrugged. "You ever been to Mexico?"

It was warm in Mexico, I thought. I slipped my gloved hand through his, lacing my fingers over the top, massaging the spaces between his knuckles where the deadly blades sliced through. I could feel the pointed tips of adamantium underneath the skin, waiting to jump out, slice, tear, kill. Who would have thought those same hands could be so gentle and tender? At first his hand was rigid, inflexible, then, gradually, he wrapped his fingers around mine, and I saw the beautiful contrast of his rough tanned skin against my soft, satin glove. I leaned my head on his shoulder, holding his hand between my own.

"I think I'd like that."

And as the sun rose higher in the morning sky, I felt the soft pink rays warm our clasped hands, felt it wash me in a new light, a life after death.

Eternity was waiting.

_The End_


End file.
